On 20th July, 2020, Hope Probe launched off from Tanegashima Space Centre in southwestern Japan. Hope is equipped with a number data collecting instruments like The Emirates Mars InfraRed Spectrometer, The Emirates exploration Imager and The Emirates Mars Ultraviolet Spectrometer. All these instruments are made for one purpose only- to understand the Red Planet a little more. This spectacular mission also prepares the scientists in the UAE for future assignments pertaining to space.
All this work began back in the end of 2013. It was just an idea then present by Cabinet retreat in Sir Baniyas Island in Abu Dhabi. Cut to post seven months, His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, announced that the UAE will be going to Mars and issued a decree to establish the UAE Space Agency. Established in 2015, The Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre, was given task to design, develop and launch the probe to Mars.
We are 9 days away from the arrival of UAE's Hope probe to Mars in the first Arab interplanetary mission. The UAE will be the 5th nation to reach the Red Planet. The probe has a 50% success rate in entering Mars' orbit, but we achieved 90% of our goals in building new knowledge.
— HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) February 1, 2021
The whole journey was about 493 million kilometer. On February 1st, HH Sheikh Mohammed tweeted that the probe is just 9 days away from Mars. Though the probe hasn’t yet completed what it was made for but it has successfully completed some other endeavors.
