History was made this week as the UAE Mars Mission successfully navigated its way into Martian orbit.
Seven months and 493 million km from Earth, Hope Probe has safely pulled up alongside Earth’s nearest neighbour, and is now in orbit around the Red Planet.
Back on terra firma, the UAE is celebrating the momentous achievement with iconic landmarks across the country sporting a red glow, limited edition passport stamps being issued for all arrivals in the country and messages of celebration and reflection being shared.
Already the Hope Probe is orbiting Mars and recording data.
The probe will gather and send back 1,000GB of crucial information to the UAE’s Science Data Centre via different ground stations spread around the world.
A variety of data collecting instruments – including The Emirates eXploration Imager, The Emirates Mars InfraRed Spectrometer, and The Emirates Mars Ultraviolet Spectrometer – (all of which sound very complicated) – will record vital pieces of info that will be shared with the scientific community.
In fact, data collected by UAE Mars Mission will be shared with more than 200 academic institutions around the world to benefit the global space community and help drive forward the study of the potential for life on other planets.
Perhaps most exciting of all, the first images of the surface of Mars are set to be transmitted back to Earth within the week.
The UAE Mars Mission is the first interplanetary mission ever conducted by an Arab nation, making it a historic achievement.
And things won’t be getting quiet on Mars any time soon, in fact there are more incoming arrivals scheduled for the weeks ahead.
The Hope Probe will be joined in orbit on Wednesday February 10 by the Chinese Tianwen-1, then on Thursday February 18 NASA’s Perseverance Rover is set to land and drill into Mars’ surface.
Closer to home, the UAE can celebrate a momentous achievement and look forward to more missions to space in the coming years.
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