Well the article doesn't give a full account because it doesn't address what the Islamic scholars have said on this issue. But its an old article and maybe they were not able to report on the issue.
AFAIK, there were actually 8-9 Muslims in space till now. (
List of Muslim astronauts - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
In short, the flexibilities in Islam are provided as follows
(1) If water is scarce, you can symbolically do ablution called
Taymmum. This is applicable for example in deserts or when traveling on Earth as well historically
(2) You can combine the five prayers into three prayers and perform it on the basis of Earth time from the place of your launch or Mecca time. Each prayer takes about 2-3 minutes and would be based on Earth hours rather than revolutions of the space craft.
On the 0-gravity issue, prirotiy to be given to stand, if that's not possible then you can sit and pray and if that is not possible then you can just lie down and action the prayer.
(3) For facing Qibla or Mecca. Priority should be given to facing towards Earth and if that is not possible then in any direction
(4) For eating, priority to be given to vegetarian if halal food is not available. If that is not possible than any food item is OK.
(5) On Fasting, even on earth, if you are travelling, you don't have to fast. But you should redo the skipped fasts whenever you can after you reach your destination. Other exceptions include, Pregnant and lactating female, the sick and the infirm like Diabetes patients for example. So an astronaut would be expected to skip the fasting and completed the missed days back on earth.
I think there was a feature on Wired magazine done on this back in 2007 when the Malaysian astronaut was first going to go to space. It was part of a deal that the Russians gave for purchasing sukhoi fighter jets. They had like a national lucky draw/competition to select the winner.
I wish the Russians did that for India too. We buy a whole lot more from the Russians than the Malays
together
