Hope Probe celebrates first anniversary with successful scientific experiments

Gulf Today, Staff Reporter

The UAE’s Mars Exploration Project, Hope Probe celebrates on Tuesday, the one-year anniversary of the successful launch of the orbiter aboard the H2A rocket to its historic flight from the Japanese Tanegashima base on July 20, 2020.   

The Hope Probe continues orbiting the red planet on its scientific mission to collect information and data previously unavailable to mankind.

Since its launch on its historic journey to explore the Red Planet, the Hope Probe has travelled over 1,150,000 kilometers, including 493 million kilometers from the Earth to the orbit of Mars, in addition to its orbit around Mars for a full cycle every 55 hours.

The twentieth of July 2020 represents a luminous station in the history of the Emirates Mars Exploration Project. It reflects the extent to which the project team can successfully deal with the challenge in order to implement time, especially that the process of transferring the probe from Dubai to the launch station in Japan during the coronavirus pandemic.

This day also marked a historic moment, launching the first planetary exploration mission by an Arab country, the fifth country in the world to successfully reach the orbit of Mars, thus crowning more than 7 years of the tireless teamwork continued for day and night, focusing on this historic cosmic and scientific

 The Red Planet in implementation of its scientific mission, which continues until May 2023. ”

An idea in Sir Bani Yas

The Emirates Mars exploration project began as an idea that was put forward at the government retreat in 2013 on Sir Bani Yas Island, among other ideas to celebrate in a distinctive way the 50th National Day of the country in 2021.

On the sixteenth of July, sending a probe to explore Mars turned from an idea that was subject to careful study and planning to a strategic national initiative announced by His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, and His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President of the UAE, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, under the name of the Emirates Mars Exploration Project.  The name "Probe of Hope" was chosen to be a message of hope from the UAE to the youth and peoples of the region and the world.

Scientific stage.

Since its arrival at the orbit around Mars, and during the months of February, March and early April, the working team has conducted a set of calibrations and tests for the scientific instruments carried by the probe on board, and these operations, which were controlled from the ground control station, showed that the probe, its scientific devices and its subsystems are working efficiently.

1000GB of scientific data

The Hope Probe mission will carry on till May 2023. It is extendable for another Marian year. It is during this period, the orbiter will collect over 1,000GB of scientific data and high-resolution images about the Marian life.

Global recognition

In a gesture that shows the global appreciation of the Emirates Mars exploration project, the Hope Probe, won the International Achievement Award during the prestigious Sir Arthur Clark Awards 2020.