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The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has set its sights beyond Mars.
The nation announced today (October 5) its intention to launch an ambitious mission into the asteroid belt in 2028. This will be the UAE’s second interplanetary effort; the first, the UAE Mission to Mars, launched an orbiter called Hope to the Red Planet in July 2020.
Hope is still so strong, and the coming asteroid The mission will build on its successes, UAE officials said.
Pictures: Asteroids in deep space
“Our goal is clear: to accelerate the development of innovation and knowledge-based enterprises in the Emirates,” said Sarah Al Amiri, president of the United Arab Emirates Space Agency, in an emailed statement today. ‘hui.
“It cannot be done in steady state; it requires leaps of imagination, faith and the pursuit of goals that go beyond prudence or method,” Al Amiri said. “When we embarked on the Emirates Mars mission, we undertook a six-year task that was [on] around five times more complex than the Earth observation satellites we are developing. This mission is [on] the order of five times more complex than EMM. “
If all goes according to plan, the asteroid mission, whose name has not yet been revealed, will launch in 2028. It will perform overflights of Venus and Earth in mid-2028 and mid-2029, respectively. , and will go to the main Asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter in 2030. The probe will closely study seven different asteroids during its mission, which will culminate with a landing on a space rock in 2033.
This last step is quite ambitious. Only a handful of missions – NASA’s Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) cobbler and OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and the Japanese probes Hayabusa1 and Hayabusa2 – have so far achieved a soft landing on an asteroid.
The United Arab Emirates will partner on the asteroid mission with the Atmospheric and Space Physics Laboratory at the University of Colorado at Boulder, which is also a key partner in the Hope Mars mission.
The scientific objectives of the asteroid mission and the instruments it will carry will be announced in mid-2022, UAE officials said.
The asteroid mission is part of the UAE’s concerted push into deep space, which also includes the planned delivery of a lunar rover called Rashid to the lunar surface in 2022. The nation hopes that such efforts will enhance the technological skills of its people and contribute to the growth and diversification of its long-established economy. heavily dependent on oil exports.
“Today we are investing in generations to come,” said Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai, one of the seven emirates that make up the country, in the same press release. “With every new breakthrough we make in space, we are creating opportunities for young people here on Earth.”
Mike Wall is the author of “The low“(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about finding alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
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