HOPE: UAE MARS MISSION

  • Recently, the United Arab Emirates' (UAE’s) first-ever interplanetary Hope Probe mission successfully entered orbit around Mars. 
  • 2021 is also the year of 50th anniversary of UAE’s founding.
  • The mission is one of the three missions launched to Mars in July (Other two by The USA and China).

HOPE MISSION

  • The Emirates Mars Mission called “Hope” was announced in 2014 with the aim of creating mankind’s first integrated model of the Red planet’s atmosphere.
  • It is the first interplanetary mission for the Arab World.
  • The ‘Hope Orbiter’ was lifted on an H-IIA rocket from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a machinery maker in Japan.
  • It was launched from Tanegashima Island in Japan. 
  • The probe is called Al Amal in Arabic. 

AIM

  • It will give planetary scientists their first global view of Martian weather at all times of day. 
  • Over its two-year mission, it will investigate how dust storms and other weather phenomena near the Martian surface speed or slow the loss of the planet’s atmosphere into space.

PREVIOUS MISSIONS 

  • UAE has built and launched three earth-observing satellites in collaboration with a South Korean manufacturer.
  • In 2019, the UAE bought a seat on a Russian Soyuz rocket and sent its first astronaut for an eight-day stay at the International Space Station.

WHY ALL IN JULY 

  • The timing was dictated by the opening of a one-month window in which Mars and Earth are in ideal alignment on the same side of the sun, which minimizes travel time and fuel use. 
  • Such a window opens only once every 26 months.
  • The minimum distance from the Earth to Mars is about 33.9 million miles (54.6 million kilometres).

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