Ali Alqarni: The Professional Skills Behind a Journey to Space

A retrospective profile of the Saudi astronaut’s path from aviation to orbital research, and the experience behind a highly visible national milestone.

When the Saudi Space Agency highlighted Ali Alqarni’s participation in an industry conference in a LinkedIn post published on 23 April 2024, it placed his experience in a wider setting. At Aramco’s New Space Era Conference, the agency reported, he discussed space sustainability, technological advances and partnerships supporting the space economy.

The post offers a starting point for looking beyond the launch itself. Alqarni’s journey brought together aviation experience, scientific mission work and communication with audiences outside the cockpit.

An operational foundation

Axiom Space’s astronaut biography records more than 12 years of flying experience and 2,387 flight hours. His aircraft experience included the Cessna 172, T-6, T-38 and F-15, with the F-15SA his principal aircraft in Royal Saudi Air Force service.

The biography describes experience managing different mission scenarios and adjusting aircraft operations as conditions changed. The Saudi Space Agency’s profile also identifies team management and data digitisation among his skills, alongside a degree from King Faisal Air Academy and further aviation study in the United States.

Applying experience in a different environment

Alqarni served as a mission specialist on Ax-2 in May 2023, alongside fellow Saudi astronaut Rayyanah Barnawi. Axiom Space’s 30 May 2023 mission completion statement reported that the crew spent eight days aboard the International Space Station.

During that mission, the crew collectively carried out more than 20 research experiments and participated in over 20 science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics engagements. These were team activities; the published account does not assign every experiment to an individual astronaut.

For a professional audience, the career’s useful thread is the combination of technical depth, coordinated execution and public engagement. His documented experience provides a concrete example of an established specialism becoming a foundation for work in a new field.

This retrospective draws on public sources. The spaceflight took place in 2023; the LinkedIn conference post dates from 2024. Talent Diamond did not interview Alqarni.

Source record

• Saudi Space Agency, original public LinkedIn post on Alqarni at the New Space Era Conference, published 23 April 2024. Exact post date verified in the original page’s public datePublished metadata (2024-04-23T13:46:54.885Z). The post date is not asserted to be the event date.
• Axiom Space, Ali Alqarni astronaut biography, undated, checked 28 October 2026. Some wording was written before Ax-2; used as historical career background, not evidence of a new mission or appointment.
• Saudi Space Agency, official astronaut profile, undated, checked 28 October 2026.
• Axiom Space, Ax-2 Astronauts Splash Down, Completing Second Private Mission to ISS, published 30 May 2023. Splashdown was 30 May in US Eastern time.

Original portrait reference

Ali Alqarni aboard the International Space Station on 23 May 2023, during the Ax-2 mission. Archive photograph, cropped from a crew group portrait. Credit: NASA, image iss069e014094; portrait crop via Wikimedia Commons. Public-domain NASA photograph.

NASA / Mark A. Garcia, original labelled group photograph, published 25 May 2023; photograph taken 23 May 2023. Portrait crop and public-domain record. NASA’s original caption identifies Alqarni’s position in the group; the Commons record links this crop to that original.

The original reference photograph is NASA image iss069e014094. Its credit and date refer to the archive source, not the cover portrait. See NASA’s image and media guidelines; no NASA or subject endorsement is implied.