Nasa has again delayed the launch of the SpaceX rocket set to take a crew of four to the International Space Station.
Bad weather over the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida means the SpaceX Crew-3 mission will begin no sooner than to 9.03pm on Wednesday, or 5.03am on Thursday, UAE time.
The latest delay will allow the astronauts of the previous SpaceX mission, Crew-2, to return to Earth before their replacements take off for the orbital lab.
The SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying the Crew-2 astronauts is due to splash down in the Atlantic Ocean at 12.14am GMT on November 8.
Nasa had already delayed the Crew-3 launch, saying one of the astronauts was suffering from a “minor medical issue”.
The US space agency said the condition was not an emergency and was not related to Covid-19.
Who are the astronauts on the Crew-3 mission?
The Crew-3 mission comprises Americans Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn and Kayla Barron, and German Matthias Maurer of the European Space Agency.
The four astronauts will blast off aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft named Endurance from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
Nasa will live-stream the launch on its YouTube channel.
The astronauts are expected to dock with the space station on Monday, and will spend six months conducting research into material science, botany and health.
The mission is intended to help inform future deep space exploration and benefit life on Earth.
“Last night, we got to go see Endurance in the hangar as they got ready to roll it out to the pad, and actually put our hands on the Dragon, which is a pretty special experience,” Lt Col Chari, the US Air Force colonel who is commanding the mission, said on Wednesday.
Of the four, only Dr Marshburn has been to space before. The medical doctor flew aboard a Space Shuttle in 2009 and a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on a mission from 2012-13.
Ms Barron is the most recent recruit and previously served in the US Navy’s submarine fleet. She was selected for the Nasa astronaut corps in 2017, along with Lt Col Chari, and told reporters she saw many parallels between that experience and going to space.
The pair are also in the running for Nasa’s Artemis missions to return humans to the Moon later this decade.
Dr Maurer, a materials science engineer, will become the 12th German to go to space and will join fellow ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet of France on the ISS, an overlap that is likely to last several days before the Frenchman returns to Earth with the rest of his Crew-2 colleagues.
What science experiments will the crew conduct?
Scientific highlights of the mission include an experiment to grow plants in space without soil and another to build optical fibres in microgravity, which prior research has suggested will be superior in quality to those made on Earth.
Dr Maurer will help set up the European Robotic Arm, being installed on the Russian side of the ISS, and test out Cimon – an artificial intelligence assistant developed by the German space agency DLR, Airbus and IBM.
“It’s an experiment which is really paving the way towards exploration,” he said.
The AI assistant may one day act as a geology expert that astronauts on a future mission to Mars could consult for quick answers, because the time to communicate with Earth would be 40 minutes, he said.
The Crew-3 astronauts will also conduct spacewalks to complete the upgrade of the station’s solar panels and will be present for two tourism missions, accompanying Japanese tourists aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft at the end of 2021 and the Space-X Axiom crew, set for launch in February 2022.
Crew-3 is part of Nasa’s multibillion-dollar partnership with SpaceX, which it signed after ending the Space Shuttle programme in 2011 to restore American capacity to carry out human space flight.
Boeing is also part of the same commercial programme, but its Starliner capsule has been beset by delays and will not fly its first crew until the end of 2022 at the earliest.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
'Midnights'
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
If you go
Flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh with a stop in Yangon from Dh3,075, and Etihad flies from Abu Dhabi to Phnom Penh with its partner Bangkok Airlines from Dh2,763. These trips take about nine hours each and both include taxes. From there, a road transfer takes at least four hours; airlines including KC Airlines (www.kcairlines.com) offer quick connecting flights from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville from about $100 (Dh367) return including taxes. Air Asia, Malindo Air and Malaysian Airlines fly direct from Kuala Lumpur to Sihanoukville from $54 each way. Next year, direct flights are due to launch between Bangkok and Sihanoukville, which will cut the journey time by a third.
The stay
Rooms at Alila Villas Koh Russey (www.alilahotels.com/ kohrussey) cost from $385 per night including taxes.
Honeymoonish
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Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
The National in Davos
We are bringing you the inside story from the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos, a gathering of hundreds of world leaders, top executives and billionaires.
Players Selected for La Liga Trials
U18 Age Group
Name: Ahmed Salam (Malaga)
Position: Right Wing
Nationality: Jordanian
Name: Yahia Iraqi (Malaga)
Position: Left Wing
Nationality: Morocco
Name: Mohammed Bouherrafa (Almeria)
Position: Centre-Midfield
Nationality: French
Name: Mohammed Rajeh (Cadiz)
Position: Striker
Nationality: Jordanian
U16 Age Group
Name: Mehdi Elkhamlichi (Malaga)
Position: Lead Striker
Nationality: Morocco
LEAGUE CUP QUARTER-FINAL DRAW
Stoke City v Tottenham
Brentford v Newcastle United
Arsenal v Manchester City
Everton v Manchester United
All ties are to be played the week commencing December 21.
Avatar%20(2009)
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
How to watch Ireland v Pakistan in UAE
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11
What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time.
TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
More coverage from the Future Forum
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
AUSTRALIA SQUAD
Aaron Finch (captain), Ashton Agar, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Glenn Maxwell, Ben McDermott, Kane Richardson, Steve Smith, Billy Stanlake, Mitchell Starc, Ashton Turner, Andrew Tye, David Warner, Adam Zampa
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
RESULT
Bayer Leverkusen 2 Bayern Munich 4
Leverkusen: Alario (9'), Wirtz (89')
Bayern: Coman (27'), Goretzka (42'), Gnabry (45'), Lewandowski (66')
Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
WOMAN AND CHILD
Director: Saeed Roustaee
Starring: Parinaz Izadyar, Payman Maadi
Rating: 4/5
BIGGEST CYBER SECURITY INCIDENTS IN RECENT TIMES
SolarWinds supply chain attack: Came to light in December 2020 but had taken root for several months, compromising major tech companies, governments and its entities
Microsoft Exchange server exploitation: March 2021; attackers used a vulnerability to steal emails
Kaseya attack: July 2021; ransomware hit perpetrated REvil, resulting in severe downtime for more than 1,000 companies
Log4j breach: December 2021; attackers exploited the Java-written code to inflitrate businesses and governments
