After a 27-minute nail-biter, the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) first interplanetary mission successfully reached orbit March.
The spacecraft, christened Hope, launched on a Japanese H-IIA rocket on July 19, 2020 and then moved to the Red Planet for seven months. Today (February 9), Hope had to fire his drivers straight for almost half an hour to slow down enough to slide in an orbit around the Red Planet, from 75,000 km / h to 12,000 km / h (121,000 km / h to 18,000 km / hour). Mission staff on the ground could only look at what had happened and hope for the best.
“It has been a remarkable journey for mankind,” said Sarah Al Amiri, chairwoman of the UAE Space Agency, during the preparations for the maneuver.
Related: United Arab Emirates’ Hope mission to Mars in photos
With the successful insertion of the Martian orbit, the UAE becomes the fifth entity to reach the Red Planet, joining NASA, the Soviet Union, the European Space Agency and India. Today’s success also puts the $ 200 million Hope spacecraft on the bright side of grim Mars mission stats: About half of the flights to the Red Planet failed.
Insertion of Mars orbits was a critical step that required Hope to burn six six-minute propulsions of 27 minutes that the mission team could not practice exactly beforehand. Hope is now in a temporary job that he will keep for a few months while he turns on his instruments and goes to live in his new home.
Mission staff plan to move the spacecraft to its science orbit in May. That scientific orbit will see the spacecraft orbit the planet’s equator every 55 hours, a new orbit for a Mars spacecraft that gives Hope a unique opportunity to do large-scale study. atmospheric phenomena on Mars. The Hope Mission is scheduled for a full March (687 Earth Days).
Related: The UAE wants to rewrite what we know about the weather on Mars
The Hope spacecraft has three instruments with which scientists can study the weather near the surface of Mars, the connections between different layers of the atmosphere, and how Mars loses atmosphere in space. Scientists leading the mission hope that these data will help them understand, for example, how dust storms on the surface of Mars affect atmospheric loss and how weather systems around the world relate to each other.
The UAE has invaded the space sector: Hope was launched a little more than a decade after the country’s first satellite around the earth, DubaiSat 1, did so. The country has driven space exploration as a way to develop its scientific and technological knowledge and to buffer its economy, which is largely built on oil.
In addition to the Hope mission, the UAE is recruiting new astronauts in the aftermath, planning to launch a technological lander to the moon in 2024, and dubbed a century-long Red Planet strategy 2117 March, which includes both rural priorities and long-term exploration objectives.
Hope’s Mars insertion of the orbit was the first of three Red Planet arrivals this month. Tomorrow (February 10), China Tianwen-1 mission will perform the same maneuver; the mission’s rover will attempt to land on Mars in May. Dan, NASA’s Perseverance Rover will attempt to land near Jezero Crater on February 18.
The three arrivals discuss a rush to Mars that began in July, when all three spacecraft were launched to take advantage of the alignment of Mars and Earth that made the journey most feasible. Visit Space.com for ongoing updates on the three missions.
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