Renowned Syrian astronaut Muhammed Faris passed away on Friday aged 72, the opposition Syrian National Coalition confirmed, following an illness. Faris died at Sanko Hospital in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, where he had been residing for over a decade. Aleppo-born Faris was the first Syrian and second Arab overall in space, having flown as a cosmonaut with the Soviet space programme Interkosmos, accompanied by two Russian cosmonauts on the spaceflight Soyuz TM-3 in July 1987, as part of Soviet-Syrian space cooperation initiative. Only one Arab had been to space before, Sultan Bin Salman Al S…