Halal food to be prepared for first UAE astronaut at ISS

The Moscow-based Space Food Laboratory Company, which specializes in the production of astronaut food, will prepare traditional Arabic dishes for the first astronaut from the 

The Moscow-based Space Food Laboratory Company, which specializes in the production of astronaut food, will prepare traditional Arabic dishes for the first astronaut from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), who is set to depart for the International Space Station (ISS) in the fall.

Space Food Laboratory will provide the UAE astronaut with canned halal food, including balaleet, a kind of sweet vermicelli, saluna — sweet and sour fish — and madrouba.

The dishes are expected to be ready by mid-August, the document said.

Russia and the United Arab Emirates signed in the summer of 2018 an agreement on the first flight of a UAE astronaut to the ISS.

Two UAE candidates, Hazza Mansouri and Sultan Niyadi, started their training in the Moscow Region last fall.

Mansouri is set to depart for the ISS in late September, on board the Russian Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft, together with Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka and US astronaut Jessica Meir.

The UAE astronaut is expected to spend eight days on board the orbital outpost and return to the Earth on 3 October.