Space Station crew welcomes SpaceX guests

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(22 May 2023)
FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4435954

NASA - MUST CREDIT NASA
International Space Station - 22 May 2023
1. AX-2 guests arriving for welcome ceremony
HEADLINE: SpaceX guests welcomed aboard Space Station
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Sergey Prokopyev, Commander, International Space Station:
"We have now 11 person on the space station and the, uh, my big congratulations of Saudi Space Commission, and I sure you will have a great achievement in the future in your space exploration. Thank you so much and welcome aboard."
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Rayyanah Barnawi, Axiom Space guest:
"So, greetings from outer space. I'm here not only representing myself but representing the hopes and dreams of everyone back home. Everyone in the region. We are here gathering with different cultures and this international collaboration. This shows how space brings everyone together."
++EDIT ENDS ON SOUNDBITE++
STORYLINE:
The International Space Station rolled out the welcome mat Monday for two Saudi visitors, including the kingdom’s first female astronaut.

SpaceX’s chartered flight arrived at the orbiting lab less than 16 hours after blasting off from Florida. The four guests will spend just over a week there, before returning to Earth in their capsule.

The 270-mile-high (430-kilometer-high) docking puts the space station population at 11, representing not only Saudi Arabia and the U.S., but the United Arab Emirates and Russia.

Saudi Arabia’s government is picking up the multimillion-dollar tab for its first female astronaut, Rayyanah Barnawi, a stem cell researcher, and fighter pilot Ali al-Qarni.

"I'm here not only representing myself but representing the hopes and dreams of everyone back home. Everyone in the region. We are here gathering with different cultures and this international collaboration. This shows how space brings everyone together," Barnawi said during the welcoming ceremony.

John Shoffner, a Knoxville, Tennessee, businessman who started a car racing team, is paying his own way. Retired NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson is their chaperone. She now works for Axiom Space, the Houston company that organized the 10-day trip, its second to the space station.

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