The Emirati space adventure has successfully penetrated the orbit of Mars, where it aims to provide a complete picture of its atmosphere. The good news has come through NASA’s Deep Space Communications Complex in the Madrid municipality of Robledo de Chavela and has been confirmed at the control center of the Emirati space agency in Dubai.
The Hope Mars Mission team, who waited with tension for the 27 minutes that the maneuvers lasted, broke into applause at 5:14 p.m. The United Arab Emirates has officially made history by becoming the fifth country in the world to reach Mars reported Dubai public television. The stage of insertion into the orbit of Mars was successful reported by the Mohamed bin Rashid space center in Dubai. The first congratulations have come from the leaders of the federation, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohamed bin Zayed and the Emir of Dubai Mohamed bin Rashid al Maktoum, who visited the control center seconds after confirming the entry of the ship into the orbit of the Red planet.
After six months and 21 days of travel, the probe entered the Martian orbit at 4:57 p.m. Spanish time. Its six Delta-V thrusters have worked without delay to reduce cruising speed from 121,000 to 18,000 kilometers per hour. The insertion into the orbit of Mars was the most critical and dangerous part of the mission. The probe was exposed to stresses and pressures that it had never faced before, explained Omran Sharaf director of the Hope Mars Mission.
Minutes before the signal confirmed the success of the operation, Fahad al Mheiri, executive director of the Emirati space agency, acknowledged that things could go wrong. Hopefully, it finds its way. Anyway, the journey of the last six years has been amazing. Last year part of the team spent eight months in Japan for the launch of Covid-19. It has been a learning process that will open the door to new missions in the future.
THREE INSTRUMENTS
The first Arab interplanetary mission carries three tools for examining the atmosphere of Mars as it orbits around it an infrared spectrometer a scanning camera that will take high-resolution images and an ultraviolet spectrometer. There are already missions that observe the meteorology of Mars but this is the first time that we will be able to have complete images of the atmosphere of Mars at different times of the day explains François Forget, an astrophysicist at the French CSIC who will collaborate in the processing of the data.
The Emirati probe will dedicate its next few months to the testing phase and data validation, moving in an elliptical orbit between 1,000 and 49,380 km above the surface of Mars. Scientific exploration will begin in mid-May and will last for a full Martian year, equivalent to one year, 321 days, and 7 Earth hours.
The team will seek answers to some of the questions that the Red planet still raises. “How does the lower Martian atmosphere respond daytime and seasonally to radiated energy from the sun? How do conditions throughout the Martian atmosphere affect leakage rates of hydrogen and oxygen? How does the Martian exosphere upper atmosphere behave in different moments throughout the day? explains THE WORLD Hessa Rashid al Matroushi scientific director of the mission.
The first data will be published in September and will be available to the scientific community. The federation of seven emirates that rule six royal families with an iron fist seeks to develop a new economic sector while celebrating its half-century of life. We are proud to be able to contribute tangibly to the knowledge of Mars. This also marks an important point for the Emirates to continue to direct the future of their economy towards research science and technology admits Sarah al Amiri Minister of Advanced Sciences of Emirates.
