The craft called, Amal, Arabic for Hope, had reached the end of its seven-month, 300-million-mile journey and had begun circling the red planet, where it will gather detailed data on Mars’ atmosphere.

As soon as the word came that the spacecraft entered Mars orbit, ground controllers at the UAE’s space center in Dubai broke into applause and celebrated the success.

The orbiter fired its main engines for 27 minutes in an intricate, high-stakes maneuver that slowed the craft enough for it to be captured by Mars’ gravity. It took a nail-biting 11 minutes for the signal confirming success to reach Earth.

Tensions were high: Over the years, Mars has been the graveyard for a multitude of missions from various countries.

A visibly relieved Omran Sharaf, the mission’s director, declared, “To the people of the UAE and Arab and Islamic nations, we announce the success of the UAE reaching Mars.”

Two more unmanned spacecraft from the U.S. and China are following close behind, set to arrive at Mars over the next several days. All three missions were launched in July to take advantage of the close alignment of Earth and Mars.

Amal’s arrival puts the UAE in a league of just five space agencies in history that have pulled off a functioning Mars mission. As the country’s first venture beyond Earth’s orbit, the flight is a point of intense pride for the oil-rich nation as it seeks a future in space.

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One month after its historic lift-off from Japan, the Hope Probe, the Arab world’s first mission to another planet, has travelled one fifth of its journey to Mars.

This was announced by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, who shared two images from Hope Probe’s star-tracking camera and tweeted, “The Hope Probe is officially 100 million km into its journey to the Red Planet. Mars, as demonstrated in the image captured by the Probe’s Star Tracker, is ahead of us, leaving Saturn and Jupiter behind. The Hope Probe is expected to arrive to Mars in February 2021.”

“In less than 170 days, we will celebrate the probe’s entry into the Red Planet’s orbit. It will be a path-breaking achievement in the history of global Mars missions.”

He noted, “The Emirates Mars Mission will create a giant leap in the country’s space technologies and open new horizons towards other space missions. The next phase requires investments in science for the benefit of mankind. We need young people to lead us towards further scientific breakthroughs.”

The Hope Probe has so far travelled 20 per cent of its 493-million-km journey to Mars since its successful lift-off from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center on July 20, 2020.

The 100-million-km milestone comes after the probe’s successful completion of its first trajectory correction manoeuvre (TCM) that marked the firing of its six Delta-V thrusters. The probe will perform many more TCMs to reach its scheduled Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI) in less than 170 days in February 2021, coinciding with the UAE’s Golden Jubilee celebrations.

Currently travelling at a speed ranging between 110,400 km/h to 122,400km/h, the Hope Probe has already travelled fifth of its journey, equivalent to 130 trips from the Earth to the moon. The probe will automatically reduce its speed to 18,000 km/h as it gets closer to Mars.

This phase of the probe’s journey marks the testing of the three advanced science instruments mounted on the probe that work simultaneously to capture complete data from Mars. The first is an infrared spectrometer to measure the lower atmosphere and analyse the temperature structure. The second is a high-resolution exploration imager that will provide information about ozone levels and depth of water ice in the atmosphere, while the third, an ultraviolet spectrometre, is set to measure oxygen and hydrogen levels.

The Hope Probe will provide the first truly global picture of the Martian atmosphere as it orbits the Red Planet throughout one full Martian year of 687 days.

Once it enters the Red Planet’s orbit, the Probe will send back more than 1,000 gigabytes of new Mars data to be shared with over 200 research centres for free across the world. The mission’s wider objective involves inspiring youth across the world to pursue science-based fields. So far, the mission has attracted 60,000 students to join its diverse educational programmes, developed 200 new technologies and helped publish 51 research papers and build 66 parts of the probe in the UAE.

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The Emirates Mars Mission has announced the link to watch the live streaming of the Hope Probe’s launch, starting at midnight UAE Time [20:00 GMT] on July 14, on www.emm.ae/live

The link provides an opportunity for everyone to witness this historic event, which is the first interplanetary mission from the Arab World.

The probe is being launched from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan at 00:51:27 UAE Time on 15 July [20:51 GMT on July 14], marking an important milestone in the
.

The launch is the culmination of efforts of a large team of young Emirati cadres, comprising 200 engineers, experts and researchers, who over the past six years prepared for this moment and ensured that all scientific and logistical preparations to control the Probe mission were completed.

The Probe will travel 493.5 million km over seven months to reach Mars’ orbit in February 2021, coinciding with the UAE’s Golden Jubilee celebrations to mark the historic union of the Emirates.

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