The UAE is launching a mission to Mars: See their probe launch today

It’s exploring time! – the United Arab Emirates’s space probe is ready for its mission to Mars! As we speak the United Arab Emirates first deep space probe will be orbiting the red planet’s atmosphere.

According to The Verge, the Hope probe wasn’t made overnight, the UAE Space Agency has recruited approximately 450 people that have designed & tested the spacecraft for a successful mission to Mars. 

The UAE Space Agency has just provided online coverage of the Hope probe’s arrival on Mars. For fans who are keen to see the landing, you can view it on their official website. Here’s everything we know about the launch so far.

United Arab Emirates’s space team

As reported by The Verge, the United Arab Emirates’s space probe is getting ready to jump into Mars’s orbit. Dubai’s mission to Mars managers have reflected that this has been an extremely “nerve-wracking climax” for the UAE’s first launch into deep space. 

The UAE stated that they’re hoping this mission to Mars will help create new science & technology for their oil dependent economy. 

CNN noted the UAE would like the Hope probe to create the first portrait image of Mars’s orbit as well as collect various data about the planet. The space agency is aiming to track Mars’s “gauge seasonal & daily changes”. 

The UAE Space Agency would like to define everything that makes up the Mars atmosphere including the movement of oxygen & hydrogen. 

The entry of the Hope Probe into the orbit of Mars is a significant accomplishment in our nation’s history. This achievement was made possible by the Emirati pioneers whose work will inspire future scientists and engineers for generations. We are immensely proud of them.

— محمد بن زايد (@MohamedBinZayed) February 9, 2021

Hope probe

The United Arab Emirates’s robotic probe is known as the Hope probe which was launched from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center in July 2020. The UAE tweeted in excitement: “Success! Contact with #HopeProbe has been established again. The Mars Orbit Insertion is now complete.”

According to CNN, the Hope probe will make UAE as the fifth country in the world to achieve a mission on Mars. In fact, the UAE is the first Arabic country to land on our neighbor planet. 

The Verge noted the Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI) means that Hope probe will have to change its speed from 75,000 mph to 11,000 mph to stick to Mars’s gravitational force. This means that the probe will have to fire all six of its Delta-V thrusters for at least twenty-seven minutes. 

Mission to Mars

The Hope probe isn’t the only robot ready to explore Mars. In fact, NASA’s Perseverance rover & China’s Tianwen-1 was also launched in July 2020. The differences between these space probes is that the U.A.E’s Hope probe will just orbit around Mars, while the Perseverance rover will explore Mars to find signs of life and will collect rock samples. 

On the other hand, China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft will complete their six-month journey when it orbits around Mars atmosphere and lands on Mars by May 2021. According to Space, Tianwen-1’s mission to Mars will “measure soil characteristics and water-ice distribution” and collect data about the red planet’s atmospheric layers. 

Luckily the Hope probe is ready for the competition. The deputy project manager for the Emirates Mars Mission expressed to The Verge: “It’s been rehearsed enough times, we’ve thought of every single scenario that may go right or wrong, and that has been programmed into the commanding sequence”.

The Hope probe will create snapshots of the Mars atmosphere every fifty-five hours. And if you’re going to follow the Hope probe but seem to lose your connection, don’t worry, as the Hope probe will take at least fifteen minutes to reconnect when it flies on the furthest side of Mars.

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