Sultan ibn Salman Al Saud

Sultan ibn Salman Al Saud (born June 27, 1956, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) is an astronaut who was the first Saudi Arabian citizen, the first Arab, the first Muslim, and the first member of a royal family to travel into space.

Educated in the United States, Sultan received a degree in mass communications from the University of Denver (Colorado) and earned a master’s degree in social and political science from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University (New York). He later worked at the Ministry of Information in Saudi Arabia as a researcher and served as the deputy director for the Saudi Arabian Olympic Information Committee at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. In 1985 he was commissioned as an officer in the Royal Saudi Air Force and served as a fighter pilot. He retired from military service with the rank of colonel.

Later that year Sultan was chosen by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as a payload specialist for the STS-51G space shuttle mission. He embarked on an abbreviated training schedule, and on June 17, 1985, Sultan flew on the space shuttle Discovery as part of a seven-member international crew. During the seven-day mission, Sultan represented the Arab Satellite Communications Organization (ARABSAT) and took part in the deployment of the organization’s satellite, ARABSAT-1B. While in space, he also carried out a series of experiments that had been designed by Saudi scientists, including an ionized gas experiment set up by another member of the Saudi royal family for his Ph.D. dissertation and an experiment concerning the behaviour of oil and water when mixed in zero gravity. Sultan also spoke to his uncle, King Fahd, by telephone while in space and conducted a guided tour of the space shuttle’s interior in Arabic, which was broadcast on television channels in the Middle East. The shuttle landed back on Earth on June 24, 1985.

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Upon his return, Sultan became a founding member of the Association of Space Explorers, an international organization for astronauts and cosmonauts who have traveled into space, and served on its board of directors. His unique accomplishments brought him numerous state honours, particularly from Muslim and Arab countries such as Pakistan, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Morocco, and Syria.

Sultan was appointed as the first secretary-general of the Supreme Tourism Commission in Saudi Arabia when the organization was formed in 2000. In this position, he worked to expand and enhance the tourism sector in his country by playing a leading role in developing the country’s tourism strategy and devising the industry’s regulations. He remained the head of that organization when, in 2008, its name was changed to the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities. However, in 2018 it was announced that he would leave that post to become head of the new Saudi Space Commission.

In January 2015 Sultan’s father, Salman ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, became king of Saudi Arabia following the death of his brother, ʿAbd Allāh.