Calling Planet Mars: UAE’s Mission of Hope

Al Amal, or ‘Hope’, the Arab world’s first Mars probe, will be developed, built and launched by a dedicated team of Emirati scientists and engineers over the next six years.

Here are some of the reasons you should be excited about this UAE-led mission to unlock the mysteries of the Red Planet.

A MISSION WITH AMBITION

The Emirates Mars Mission was first announced last year, and more details emerged recently. The plan is to send an unmanned probe to Mars in 2021 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the UAE. That may seem a long way off, but six years is nothing when it comes to managing major space exploration projects. Other international space missions have been known to take more than twice that amount of time, so the team behind the project will be working against the clock.

Once Al Amal is safely in orbit around Mars, it will spend up to four years collecting data about the Red Planet’s atmosphere, beaming this priceless information back to Earth where researchers in the UAE will study it and share it with scientists and education institutes around the world.

Continue reading at Weyana: