Anousheh Ansari
Anousheh Ansari is an Iranian-American engineer, entrepreneur, and private astronaut. Her 2006 flight made her the first woman to fly as a private spaceflight participant and one of the best-known Iranian-born figures in human spaceflight.
- Born
- September 12, 1966
- Died
- N/A
- Birthplace
- Mashhad, Razavi Khorasan,Iran
Flights
1
Spacewalks
0
EVA time
N/A
In space
10 days, 21 hours, 5 minutes
Bio
Ansari built technology companies before spaceflight and helped support the Ansari X Prize, the competition that accelerated private suborbital spacecraft development. That background ties her directly to the broader commercial-space movement rather than to a single Soyuz seat.
She launched aboard Soyuz TMA-9 and returned on Soyuz TMA-8 after visiting the International . She flew after Daisuke Enomoto was medically grounded, trained rapidly into the prime crew slot, and used the mission for outreach, public communication, and science activity.
Ansari's profile sits at the intersection of immigration, engineering, entrepreneurship, and commercial human spaceflight. Her mission remains important because it expanded who the public could imagine as a space traveler during the early ISS private-visitor era.