[ad_1]
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – A spacecraft from the United Arab Emirates was scheduled to orbit Mars during the Arab world’s first interplanetary mission on Tuesday, the first of three robotic explorers to arrive on the Red Planet during the next week and a half.
The orbiter, called Amal, Arabic for Hope, has traveled 300 million kilometers in nearly seven months to reach Mars with the goal of mapping its atmosphere throughout each season.
A combined orbiter and lander from China is just behind, which is expected to reach the planet on Wednesday. It will circle Mars until the rover splits up and attempts to land on the surface in May to look for signs of ancient life.
An American rover named Perseverance is expected to join the crowd next week, aiming for a landing on February 18. It will be the first step in a ten-year US-European project to bring rocks from Mars back to Earth as proof that the planet was once home to microscopic life.
About 60% of all missions to Mars have failed, crashed, burned, or failed, testifying to the complexity of interplanetary travel and the difficulty of descending through Mars’ thin atmosphere.
If it is successful, China will only become the second country to successfully land on Mars. The United States has done this eight times, the first almost 45 years ago. A NASA rover and lander are still working on the surface.
For the UAE, this was the country’s first adventure beyond Earth orbit, making the flight a matter of intense national pride.
For days, monuments across the United Arab Emirates, including Burj Khalifa, the tallest tower in the world, glowed red to mark Amal’s planned arrival. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the country, paying even more attention to Amal.
The Celestial Weather Station was targeting an unusually high Martian orbit of 13,670 miles by 27,340 miles (22,000 kilometers by 44,000 kilometers). It was to join six spacecraft already in service around Mars: three Americans, two Europeans and one Indian.
Amal was expected to perform a complex, high-stakes series of turns and engine shots to get into orbit and achieve what has escaped so much before.
“Anything that goes slightly wrong and you lose the spacecraft,” said Sarah al-Amiri, Minister of State for Advanced Technologies and President of the UAE Space Agency.
A success would be a tremendous boost to the UAE’s space ambitions. The country’s first astronaut exploded in space in 2019, hitchhiking the International Space Station with the Russians. This is 58 years after the Soviet Union and the United States launched astronauts.
When developing Amal, the UAE chose to collaborate with more experienced partners instead of going it alone or buying the spacecraft elsewhere. Its engineers and scientists have worked with researchers at the University of Colorado, the University of California at Berkeley, and Arizona State University.
The spacecraft was assembled in Boulder, Colorado before being sent to Japan for launch last July.
The three spacecraft en route to the Red Planet took off within days of each other, taking advantage of the close alignment of Earth and Mars – hence their close time of arrival.
The car-sized Amal cost $ 200 million to build and launch; this excludes operating costs on Mars. Chinese and American shipments are considerably more complicated – and expensive – because of their rovers. NASA’s Perseverance mission is worth $ 3 billion.
The UAE, a federation of seven skeikhdoms, is looking for Amal to ignite the imaginations of scientists in the country and his youth, and help prepare for a future when the oil runs out.
“This mission was never just about reaching Mars,” said Omran Sharaf, Amal’s project manager. “Mars is just a means to a much bigger goal.”
____
Associated Press author Malak Harb contributed to this report.
[ad_2]
Source link