A dream tryst with the future

Top Stories

UAE announces 2-month grace period for residence visa violators

UAE announces fee refund for tax service charges from August 1

Paid parking in Dubai: Residents face up to Dh4,000 extra yearly costs when new rates kick in

The Mars Hope Probe is a glowing testament to UAE's spirit of overcoming the impossible

By Issac John

Published: Tue 9 Feb 2021, 8:19 AM

Last updated: Tue 9 Feb 2021, 10:52 AM

The Hope Probe's dream tryst with the Red Planet is a defining moment for the Arab world, such that marking the UAE's momentous breakthrough in space technology also sets the course of the nation's inexorable expedition into a technology-driven future.

After travelling 493.5 million km in 200 days at 120,000 km per hour speed, the robotic probe, which has been launched under the Emirates Mars Mission, is expected to enter the red planet's orbit, making the UAE the fifth nation ever to achieve such a feat.

The Hope Probe, the first space mission that has been designed to provide a complete picture of the Red Planet's atmosphere and its layers, will help answer key questions about the second smallest planet in the solar system and the loss of hydrogen and oxygen gases into space over the span of one Martian year.

The mission, which is entering a different orbit not so far entered by other spacecraft that have visited Mars, is expected to last for two years, with the possibility of being extended to a third year. Every nine days of the mission, the probe will have completely captured a picture of the Martian atmosphere.

Aptly named 'Hope' or Al Amal, the probe's mission, which blasted off from Tanegashima Space Centre of Japan on July 20, 2020, seeks to send out a message of optimism to millions of Arabs across the globe and encourage them towards innovation as the UAE celebrates half-a-century of phenomenal growth, and contemplates the blueprint for the next 50 years of advancement and prosperity.

The game-changing space odyssey, while catapulting the UAE into the exclusive club of world's most technologically advanced nations, also epitomises the profound wisdom and vision of the UAE's founders as well as the pragmatism and perspicacity of its current leadership.

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and the driving force behind the Mars Mission, has said that the epic Hope Probe mission is a glowing testament to UAE's spirit of overcoming the impossible.

Sheikh Mohammed has spelt out three messages when he announced the epic mission: "The first message is for the world: that Arab civilisation once played a great role in contributing to human knowledge, and will play that role again; the second message is to our Arab brethren: that nothing is impossible and we can compete with the greatest of nations in the race for knowledge, and the third message is for those who strive to reach the highest of peaks: set no limits to your ambitions, and you can reach even to space.

"It will be a defining moment for the UAE and a turning point between the past 50 years of human development and the 50 years to come. Today, we see the reward and we rejoice. We should be proud of our people and celebrate their success with the world."

From time immemorial, the red planet has been capturing human imagination. Now, mankind is at a junction where it knows a great deal about the planet, and has the vision and technology to explore further. Mars is an obvious target for exploration for many reasons. From mankind's pursuit to find extraterrestrial life to someday expand human civilisation to other planets, Mars serves as a long-term and collaborative project for the entire human race.

Costing $200 million, the mission has been designed to create disruptive change and a positive impact at home, and to inspire a shift in the priorities of the Emirati youth. The milestone project is already acting as a catalyst in Emirati society that has triggered and supported the creation of an advanced science sector in the UAE.

As Sarah Al Amiri, UAE's Minister of State for Advanced Sciences, says, the mission "has taught us a mechanism by which we're able to develop talent and capabilities, transfer them through different levels of expertise and, more importantly, develop small businesses that can cater to big industries."

The country's rapidly maturing space industry will play a key role in the creation of new private sector enterprises in the UAE. Not only has the mission spurred a scientific awakening in the UAE, it has also demonstrated the country's commitment to multilateralism, particularly when it comes to space exploration and the data behind it.

According to Omran Sharaf, Project Manager at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC), the project is not just about reaching Mars. Science and data is extremely important and one of the main drivers of the mission, but there's much more to it than that.

"Since day one of this project, the direction that we've received from the government has been to share data from this mission openly with everyone, and with no restrictions. We've always had the intention of being open with the data collected by this mission," says Sharaf.

Hope is expected to complete one scientific orbit of the planet every 55 hours. This orbit will provide the first global picture of weather and atmospheric dynamics on Mars, which will be shared with the scientific community via the mission's data centre.

The orbit will take the probe fairly close to parallel with the Martian equator, which will enable the spacecraft to capture different times of day on the planet. And the fact that it's an elliptical, or oval-shaped, orbit means that observations will be captured close to as well as distant from Mars.

The spacecraft can observe many geographic regions at a single time of day when the whole probe gets close to Mars and speeds up, and it can match the speed at which Mars is spinning on its axis. It can hover above a single geographic region like the big volcano, Olympus Mons, and study the atmosphere.

The space probe will study daily and seasonal weather cycles, weather events in the lower atmosphere such as dust storms, and how the weather varies in different regions of the planet. It will also attempt to find out why it is losing hydrogen and oxygen into space and other possible reasons behind its drastic climate changes. The mission is being carried out by a team of Emirati engineers in collaboration with foreign research institutions, and is a contribution towards a knowledge-based economy in the UAE.

- issac john@khaleejtimes.com