The United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) Hope spacecraft has entered Martian orbit, making it the fifth agency to successfully reach the red planet’s gravitational zone.
The probe arrived at 7:57pm on Tuesday, a statement said after confirmation reached Earth.
That followed the most critical half-hour in its seven-month journey, requiring a deceleration to just 18,000kph from 121,000kph and a reliance on the probe’s autonomous self-correcting systems.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“The Martian insertion sequence went exactly as planned — to the dot,” Emirati Minister of State for Advanced Sciences Sarah Al Amiri said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.
The Hope project marks the UAE’s first excursion into deep space, part of the Persian Gulf nation’s efforts to ease a dependence on oil and enhance international standing.
The country established a Space Agency in 2014, sent its first astronaut to the International Space Station five years later, and plans to send an uncrewed spaceship to the moon in 2024.
Information gathered from the Mars mission would help develop the country’s space sector, Al Amiri said.
“For us, that’s what’s important. Establishing a vibrant space industry in the country over the course of the next five years is our next target,” she said.
The probe is a 13.5-tonne orbiter designed as a weather satellite to analyze the dynamic aspects of the atmosphere across the entire planet.
The two-year mission also aims to study hydrogen and oxygen in Mars’ upper atmosphere, and why those elements are lost to space.
The probe is the first of three Mars missions in the coming days.
Yesterday, China’s Tianwen-1 mission started ticking off an audacious to-do list.
Next week, NASA is to attempt to land its largest rover yet in an ancient lake bed.
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