Young Professionals in the UAE Space Sector
- Paper number
IAC-19,E1,IP,17,x48962
- Author
Ms. Maitha Al Romaithi, United Arab Emirates, UAE Space Agency
- Year
2019
- Abstract
The United Arab Emirates’ interest in astronomy and space sciences dates back to the 1970’s, when His Highness Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan (Founder of the UAE) met with the NASA team responsible for the Apollo moon landing. This encounter sparked a national intrests on space that began almost four decades ago, eventually leading to the birth of a national space sector with the establishment of Thuraya Communications Company in 1997, Al Yah Satellite Communications company (Yahsat) in 2007, the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology in 2006 which was incorporated with the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in 2015, and the UAE Space Agency which was established by federal decree in 2014. The vision of the UAE Leadership is to empower Emirati youth to lead across a range of sectors, resulted in heavy investment that has enabled them to take responsibilities, innovate and contribute to the welfare of the UAE's through working on space missions and projects such as the Emirates Mars Mission, KhlaifaSat and MeznSat as well as research and development projects. The process of recruiting highly skilled young professionals was a main priority were young professionals can create and develop innovative ideas and use their skills on space missions and projects The number of young professionals in the space sector has significantly increased over the past 21 years, for example the number of youth in the UAE Space Agency reached 50% and the number of Youth Engineers reached 55% by the end of 2018.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)