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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – The United Arab Emirates on Tuesday announced plans to send a probe to land on an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter to collect data on the origins of the universe, the latest project in the ambitious space program of the oil federation.
A successful landing would see the United Arab Emirates join an elite club of the European Union, Japan and the United States, which have achieved the feat. The probe would remain on the asteroid, transmitting information to Earth about the asteroid’s makeup as long as its batteries remained charged.
The project aims to launch in 2028 with a landing in 2033, a five-year journey during which the spacecraft will travel some 3.6 billion kilometers (2.2 billion miles). The spacecraft would first launch a slingshot around Venus, then Earth to gain enough speed to hit an asteroid some 560 million kilometers (350 million miles) away.
The data the Emirates will collect is still under discussion, but the mission will be an even greater challenge than previous ones, given that the spacecraft will travel both near the sun and far away from it, Sarah al-Amiri said. , President of the United Arab Emirates Space Agency. and a Minister of State for Advanced Technology.
“Because this comes at the back of the Emirates Mars mission, it’s several factors more difficult, rather than exponentially more difficult,” al-Amiri told The Associated Press. “If we were going to accomplish this mission from the start without having the knowledge we currently have of the Emirates Mars mission, it will be very difficult to do. “
Some 1.1 million known asteroids circulate in the solar system, remnants of its formation, according to NASA. Most orbit the sun in the area between Mars and Jupiter targeted by the planned Emirati mission. Their makeup includes the building blocks of the world we know now.
The United Arab Emirates Space Agency has announced that it will partner with the University of Colorado’s Atmospheric and Space Physics Laboratory on the project. He declined to immediately offer a cost for the effort or describe any special features of the asteroid he wanted to study. Al-Amiri said there are ongoing discussions about what equipment the spacecraft will carry, which in turn will affect the characteristics it can observe.
The project comes after the Emirates successfully put its Amal, or “Hope,” probe into orbit around Mars in February. It cost $ 200 million to build and launch the car-sized Amal. This excludes operating costs on Mars. The asteroid mission would likely cost more, given its challenges.
The UAE plans to send an unmanned spacecraft to the Moon in 2024. The country, home to Abu Dhabi and Dubai, has also set itself an ambitious goal of building a human colony on Mars by 2117 – but its most immediate goal is to grow. a space economy that is both private and public with its projects.
“It’s difficult. It’s a challenge,” al-Amiri said of the asteroid project. “We fully understand and understand this, but we understand the benefits of taking over such important programs and projects. and ambitious. ”
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