A desire to unlock the secrets and mysteries of the universe has for decades encouraged nations to push the ever-advancing boundaries of scientific and technical knowledge as they strive to explore the unknown. There have been a number of historic landmarks along the way, including the successful launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite in 1957, Yuri Gargarin’s orbit of the Earth in 1961, and the first Moon landing in 1969.
To this illustrious list we can soon add the first interplanetary expedition by an Arab country, as the UAE begins the final countdown to the launch on Friday of the Emirates Mars Mission. After a two-day delay due to bad weather, an unmanned probe, called Hope, will lift off from Tanegashima Space Center in Japan and begin its 495 million kilometer journey to the Red Planet.
Once it enters orbit around Mars, the Hope Probe will study the planet’s daily and seasonal cycles, along with the erosion of the Martian atmosphere, a process that leaves the planet waterless and ill-suited to life. The UAE will share the data it collects with more than 200 academic and scientific institutions around the world free of charge.
This historic moment for the region follows decades of preparations and work to achieve a grand vision set out in the 1970s by the UAE’s founder, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan. His interest in space was triggered by a meeting in 1976 with NASA astronauts who had flown in a number of Apollo missions to the moon.
US President Richard Nixon also presented Sheikh Zayed with a gift of a moon rock collected from the Taurus-Littrow Valley during the 1972 Apollo 17 mission. That relic, from what remains the last moon landing to date, is on display in Al-Ain Museum.
Soon after, Sheikh Zayed sent a clear message to his people, and the world, that Emirati curiosity about, and ambitions for, space exploration would know no boundaries. So began the country’s journey into space.
In 2006, the UAE began collaborating closely with universities and space agencies around the world to establish knowledge-transfer programs, with the goal of one day sending a spacecraft to Mars. However, it was not until the UAE Space Agency was formed in 2014 that the world really began to sit up and take notice of the country’s ambitious space-exploration plans.
In 2017, 34-year-old military pilot Hazza Al-Mansouri was one of two people selected from 4,000 applicants to join the agency’s inaugural astronaut corps. After rigorous mental and physical tests, he trained in Russia as a part of an agreement between the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos.
The UAE’s first astronaut joined the crew of a Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft that took off on Sept. 25, 2019, bound for the International Space Station. Al-Mansouri’s eight-day mission ended on Oct. 2, when he landed safely in Kazakhstan, after which he proudly stated that he had returned with “Sheikh Zayed’s space mission achieved.”
The Hope Probe, which will be launched by a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H2A rocket, weighs 289 tonnes and is 53 meters tall. It is expected to enter orbit around Mars in Feb. 2021, in time for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the UAE.
“The cost of the Hope Mars Mission [has] reached $200 million, which is considered among the lowest in the world when compared with similar programs,” Mohammad Al-Gergawi, minister for cabinet affairs and the future of the UAE said in a message posted on Twitter by the Prime Minister’s Office.
