Anousheh Ansari

Anousheh Ansari (born September 12, 1966 in Mashhad, Iran) is an engineer and the Iranian-American co-founder and chairman of Prodea Systems & first female space tourist. On September 18, 2006, a few days after her 40th birthday, she became the first Iranian and the first self-funded woman to fly to the International Space Station.

Anousheh Ansari

Anousheh Ansari was born in Mashhad, Iran and moved to Tehran shortly afterward. She immigrated to the United States in 1984 as a teenager. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering and computer science at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia and her master's degree at George Washington University in Washington D.C. After graduation, Anousheh began work at MCI, where she met her future husband, Hamid Ansari. They married in 1991.

In 1993, as a wave of deregulation hit the telecommunications industry, she persuaded her husband, Hamid Ansari, and her brother-in-law, Amir Ansari, to co-found telecom technologies, Inc. (TTI), using their savings and corporate retirement accounts. TTI was acquired by Sonus Networks in 2001 in a stock-for-stock transaction for 10.8 million shares of Sonus stock. worth more than half-a-billion dollars. A year later, Fortune magazine estimated her personal wealth at about $180 million dollars. The stock price of Sonus then plummeted, and Ansari was sued for insider trading.

In 2006, Ansari co-founded Prodea Systems and is the current chairman and CEO. Prodea has announced a partnership with Space Adventures, Ltd. and the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation (FSA) to create a fleet of suborbital spaceflight vehicles (the Space Adventures Explorer) for global commercial use.

Ansari is a member of the X PRIZE Foundation’s Vision Circle, as well as its Board of Trustees. Along with her brother-in-law, Amir Ansari, she made a multi-million dollar contribution to the X PRIZE foundation on May 5, 2004, the 43rd anniversary of Alan Shepard's sub-orbital. The X PRIZE was officially renamed the Ansari X PRIZE in honor of their donation.

Spaceflight

Anousheh Ansari dreamed of going into space since she was a little girl in Iran. She trained as a backup for Daisuke Enomoto for a Soyuz flight to the International Space Station, through Space Adventures, Ltd. On August 21, 2006, Enomoto was medically disqualified from flying the Soyuz TMA-9 mission that was due to launch the following month. The next day Ansari was elevated to the prime crew.

Asked what she hoped to achieve on her spaceflight, Ansari said, "I hope to inspire everyone, especially young people, women, and young girls all over the world, and in Middle Eastern countries that do not provide women with the same opportunities as men to not give up their dreams and to pursue them. It may seem impossible to them at times. But I believe they can realize their dreams if they keep it in their hearts, nurture it, and look for opportunities and make those opportunities happen." The day before her departure, she was interviewed on Iran national television for the astronomy show Night's Sky. The hosts wished her success and thanked her on behalf of Iranians. Ansari in return, thanked them.

From left to right: Anousheh Ansari, Mikhail Tyurin, Michael Lopez-Alegria

Ansari lifted off on the Soyuz TMA-9 mission with commander Mikhail Tyurin (RSA) and flight engineer Michael Lopez-Alegria (NASA) at 04:59 (UTC) on Monday September 18, 2006 from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Ansari became the fourth (and first female) space tourist. Her contract did not allow for disclosure of the amount paid, but previous space tourists have paid in excess of $20 million USD. The space craft docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday September 20, 2006, at 05:21 (UTC). Ansari landed safely aboard Soyuz TMA-8 on September 29, 2006 at 01:13 UTC on the steppes of Kazakhstan (90 kilometers north of Arkalyk) with U.S. astronaut Jeffrey Williams and Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov. She was given red roses from an unidentified official, and a surprise kiss from her husband, Hamid. Rescuers moved them to Kustanai for welcome ceremony with helicopters.

In 2010, Anousheh Ansari's memoir, My Dream of Stars, co-written with Homer Hickam, was published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Honors and awards

Ansari has received multiple honors, including the George Mason University Entrepreneurial Excellence Award, the George Washington University Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award, the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the Southwest Region, and the Horatio Alger Award. While under her leadership, Telecom Technologies, Inc. earned recognition as one of Inc. magazine's 500 fastest-growing companies and one of Deloitte & Touche’s Fast 500 technology companies. She was listed in Fortune magazine's "40 under 40" list in 2001 and honored by Working Woman magazine as the winner of the 2000 National Entrepreneurial Excellence award. In 2009 she was received the first Symons Innovator Award given annually by NCWIT to honor successful women entrepreneurs in technology.

The Ansari family was recently honored with an Orbit Award by the National Space Society and Space Tourism Society for underwriting the Ansari X PRIZE.

Anousheh Ansari participated as a speaker at the 2010 Honeywell Leadership Academy at Space Camp in Huntsville Alabama with Homer Hickam.

In 2010, she was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in recognition of her humanitarian efforts.