DEWA’s delegation visits NASA Kennedy Space Centre

Gulf Today, Staff Reporter

Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), is leading a delegation to the United States to strengthen joint relations and exchange best global experiences and practices in space exploration and technology and related industries.

Al Tayer’s delegation included Waleed Bin Salman, Executive Vice President of Business Development and Excellence, Marwan bin Haidar, Executive Vice President of Innovation and The Future, Dr. Hesham Ismail, Head of 4IR Research, and Saeed Beljafla, Deputy Senior Manager of Protocol at the MD & CEO’s Office.

The delegation visited the Kennedy Space Centre, which is operated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Andrea Farmer, Director of Business Development, welcomed the delegation, who toured the centre and learned about NASA’s work on space exploration and its current space missions.

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The visit included a tour of the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame, where American astronauts are remembered and honoured. Created by the Mercury Seven astronauts, a special committee of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation selects US Astronaut Hall of Fame inductees.

Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer speaks during an event. File photo

The Kennedy Centre is one of the most photographed tourist attractions, with its amazing authentic machines that pioneered America’s space exploration. A Mercury-Redstone 3 rocket launched the aspirations of an entire country in 1961, when Alan Shepard completed the first US manned space flight. NASA’s Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programmes are on display in this garden of giants, not just as engineering feats of technology, but also as tribute to the scientists and engineers who turned dreams of spaceflight into reality.

Al Tayer and the accompanying delegation visited NASA Now gallery, which houses temporary displays of spacecraft on loan from NASA and partners like Boeing and SpaceX.

On display were spacecrafts created for NASA’s Commercial Crew Programme and Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) transportation to the International Space Station (ISS), and NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), the future transportation for deep space exploration. Some of these spacecrafts are actually went into space. The delegation viewed the Atlantis Space Shuttle Launch Experience. One of three space-flown shuttles displayed in the United States, Space Shuttle Atlantis shows the orbiter spacecraft and tells the story of NASA’s 30-year Space Shuttle Programme.

DEWA’s Space-D Programme, which was launched in January 2021, is getting ready to launch DEWASAT-1 nanosatellite. According to plans, DEWASAT-1 will be launched by SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, USA, on Thursday, 13th January 2022, at 7:30pm UAE time.