VIDEO: UAE’s Mars Probe a mission of Hope

Gulf Today, Staff Reporter

The Hope Probe is more than a space mission to Mars. It is a promise of hope to the Arab world.

On July 15, 2020, the UAE will become the first Arab nation to launch a mission to Mars.

The Gulf nation has built a nuclear power programme and sent a man to space, and now plans to join another elite club by sending a probe to Mars.

Only the United States, India, the former Soviet Union, and the European Space Agency have successfully sent missions to orbit the Red Planet, while China is preparing to launch its first Mars rover later this month.

The UAE will mark the 50th anniversary of its unification with "Hope", an unmanned spacecraft expected to reach its target in February after being launched on July 15 from Japan's Tanegashima Space Centre.

While the mission objective is to provide a comprehensive image of the weather dynamics in Mars' atmosphere and pave the way for scientific breakthroughs, the probe is a foundation for a much bigger goal -- building a human settlement on Mars within the next 100 years.

Hope Mars Mission in its Twitter account said, “This is more than a mission to Mars; this is a mission of Hope.”

It shared an inspiring video and captioned it, “This is our story of hope and what it means to us. You too can share your hope stories and show the world what 'hope' means to you by using #HopeMarsMission”

NASA showcases the Mars rover Perseverence. AFP

The Emirates Mars Mission aims to draw a clear and comprehensive picture of the Martian climate, which will give scientists deeper insight into the past and future of our own planet as well as the potential of life for humans on Mars and on other distant planets.

The Hope Probe objectives:

•    Study why Mars is losing its upper atmosphere to space by tracking the behaviour and escape of hydrogen and oxygen, the building blocks of water

•    Investigate the connection between the lower and upper levels of the Martian atmosphere

•    Create the first global picture of how the Martian atmosphere changes through the day and between seasons

•    Observe weather phenomena, such as dust storms, changes in temperature, and how the atmosphere interacts with the topography

•    Reveal the causes of Martian surface corrosion

•    Search for connections between today’s weather and the ancient climate of the red planet

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Hope Mars Mission earlier said on Twitter, “Locked and loaded: The Hope Probe, now attached to the payload support structure and encapsulated within the payload fairing, is all set to board the H2A launch vehicle. This is our last glimpse of the Probe before it’s launched into space.

“Great work by the Emirates Mars Mission and MHI teams in getting the spacecraft ready for its big day. #HopeMarsMission”

Scientists are still trying to determine whether the planet was ever inhabited by metabolic life forms.

"Four billion years ago, the conditions on the planet's surface were very close to those which we had on Earth when life first appeared," including liquid water and a dense atmosphere, said Jorge Vago, the spokesperson for the European Space Agency's ExoMars initiative.