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With less than two weeks before the country’s very first interplanetary mission orbiting Mars, scientists in the United Arab Emirates can’t wait for the Orbiter of Hopethe arrival of.
The UAE launched Hope in July 2020, one of three missions with an optimal window to head to the Red Planet, along with the Chinese Tianwen-1 mission and NASA’s Perseverance rover. Hope is an orbiter designed to study the atmosphere of mars around the planet and surface to space. The mission will conduct its insertion maneuver into Mars orbit on February 9 starting at approximately 10:30 a.m. EST (3:30 p.m. GMT).
“Right now, the team has prepared as well as they can possibly prepare to reach orbit around Mars,” Sarah Al Amiri, president of the UAE Space Agency, said during the meeting. ‘a press conference which took place almost yesterday (January 28). “We are just counting the last few days before arriving on the red planet.”
Related: Photos of the UAE’s Hope Mission to Mars
Less than half of the missions to Mars attempted to date have been successful. Before the risky maneuver, which will involve Hope firing her thrusters for nearly half an hour to slow down enough to glide into orbit around Mars, the spacecraft is in excellent condition, mission staff said.
“We are fortunate to have a very healthy spacecraft, and everything looks very good right now,” Pete Withnell, Hope Program Manager at the University of Colorado Laboratory for the Atmospheric and Space Physics Program, who partnered with the UAE for the mission, said at the press conference.
“I’m optimistic; that would be my main emotion right now,” Withnell said. “But I can tell you that a lot of the team members wake up at two in the morning in a cold sweat just thinking and thinking about certain aspects.”
If all goes well on February 9, the United Arab Emirates will mark a major achievement, becoming the fifth entity to successfully reach Mars, after NASA, the Soviet Union, the European Space Agency and India. (China can quickly follow the UAE’s heels; the nation Tianwen-1 mission will complete its own insertion into Mars orbit a day after Hope.)
Prior to the start of the Hope mission, the UAE’s space experience was limited to satellites in Earth orbit; The Nations first astronaut spent a week on the International Space Station in fall 2019. But in 2017, the country launched a century-old Mars-focused initiative aimed at building an oil-free economy and strengthening the country’s technical sector.
Related: UAE wants to rewrite what we know about the weather on Mars
The United Arab Emirates designed the science objectives of the Hope mission in collaboration with the international community and established international partnerships, in particular with the University of Colorado, to complete the spacecraft, then leased a Japanese Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H rocket. -IIA to run the launch on July 19.
Hope is supposed to spend a Martian year, or nearly two Earth years, studying the Red Planet; this calendar will start in May. During the mission, the spacecraft will orbit high above the planet’s equator to study the weather at the surface and how the layers of the planet’s atmosphere interact.
Even as Hope made the long trip to Mars, the United Arab Emirates announced their next mission beyond Earth orbit. In 2024, the nation intends to launch its first lunar rover, Rashid, which will focus on the development and evaluation of space exploration technologies. As with the Hope mission, the UAE will contract out the launch of Rashid rather than developing its own rocket technology.
But for Team Hope, the focus is on Mars and all about the challenges of arriving safely.
“I think everyone on the mission understands the emotional roller coaster,” Al Amiri said. “Each point of celebration is followed by several points of concern, awaiting the next point of celebration.”
“I wish I could have put it into words, but I’m probably all you can think of, both positive, negative and neutral.”
Email Meghan Bartels at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels. follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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