Akram Amin Abdellatif is making a bid to be the first Egyptian astronaut as a part of a NASA program.
Abdellatif was recently selected as a candidate for ' Project PoSSUM (Polar Suborbital Science in the Upper Mesosphere) ', a suborbital research program that is sponsored by NASA and is investigating climate change from the Earth's mesosphere at an altitude of 130 kilometers.
Abdellatif, who is now undergoing training at the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida, could be selected next year from the 12 other candidates to participate in one of PoSSUM's space missions that will start in 2017, which would make him the first Egyptian astronaut.
The 27-year-old, who has been working on his doctoral thesis at the Technical University of Munich's Institute of Flight System Dynamics in Germany, made another stellar achievement on his path to space in 2014.
Along with TUM colleague Hanaa Gaber, Abdellatif won the US's International Space Station Research Competition for "Egypt Against Hepatitis C Virus."
The project studied the molecular structure of the virus under micro-gravity conditions in space where the crystallization of the viral proteins is easier than on Earth, in hope of formulating better drugs to limit the spread of the disease in Egypt.
The two scientists, who beat out hundreds of candidates, sent the viral proteins to the ISS crew who then carried out the experiments on the space station, the first Egyptian experiments to be developed for the ISS.
Abdellatif's journey started with dreams of reaching space in his hometown Cairo, where he started out as a communications engineer and a German University in Cairo graduate.
After going to Stuttgart, Germany, in 2009 for his first Master's degree, the ambitious engineer's dreams turned into goals.
He started working as an intern at the German Aerospace Center in Stuttgart, as a development engineer at the DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen while working on his second Master's degree, and he also joined the nonprofit space-mission-training organization "Astronauts 4hire."
It's hard to believe how much the young aspiring astronaut has achieved in just a few years, and now, the accomplishment he wants the most is almost at his fingertips.
Will Abdellatif be the first-ever Egyptian astronaut to travel to space? With ambition like that, it seems like it's only a matter of time.