“Al-Amal” (Hope in French, Hope in English), the first Arab space mission to Mars, led by the United Arab Emirates, has finally started. After a postponement last week due to poor weather conditions, the unmanned spacecraft took off from the Tanegashima space center in southwest Japan last night.
The 1,350 kg probe, the size of a 4×4, will now take seven months to travel the 493 million km to Mars, in time to mark the 50th anniversary of the unification of the seven emirates in 2021.
“Today is a very important step in the history of the United Arab Emirates and that of the Arab world, the launch of the first Arab mission in space” said Omran Sharaf, project manager of the mission.
The preparation for the launch has been tense for the team here who has been working on this mission for 6 years. The coronavirus pandemic imposed a tight schedule, and then bad weather at the launch site in Japan caused further last-minute delays.
“From July-August, it is the window which allows you to go to Mars. If we could not leave in this launch window, we would have had to wait two years … We have anticipated, thought about things that we could face in terms of risk, timing, etc. The Covid 19 was not one of them, that’s for sure “ explains Mohsen Am Awadhi, senior systems engineer for the mission.
The Emirates-made probe is the first spacecraft developed by an Arab country to conduct a Martian exploration mission.
« People think launching the probe is the most important moment, and I say no “Says Omran Sharaf, director of the” Emirates Mars “mission. ” Reaching Mars is another very important phase of the mission. This is called insertion into the orbit of Mars, ”he continues. “If you go too fast, you miss Mars and if you go too slow, you crash on Mars “He warns.
This mission is to learn more about the atmosphere and weather of the red planet, which still contains many mysteries.
“What we are going to do on Mars is to study the climate for a whole Martian year »Details Sara Al-Amiri, UAE Minister of State for Advanced Science. « It is approximately two Earth years. We will better understand the dynamics of the meteorological system, what happens over an entire year and throughout the day, and what are the seasonal variations on the two hemispheres of Mars ”, she specifies.
The answers to these questions are eagerly awaited by the scientific community in Europe, the United States and beyond, as they will undoubtedly help to understand why the planet’s climate has changed so radically during its existence.
« We know that Mars had a much thicker atmosphere in the past Recalls Mark McCaughrean, senior scientific consultant for science and exploration at the European Space Agency. ” It was also much warmer there and there was liquid water on the surface. So the objective of this mission and other studies carried out by Maven or other satellites like ESA’s Trace Gas Orbiter is to try to understand how the atmosphere is lost on Mars. It’s not just about boasting and saying “We are on Mars”. It’s about serving science, which is great, ” also explains Mark McCaughrean.
The launch of the Al-Amal probe comes during a very busy month for Martian exploration. NASA is about to launch a mission to install a robot and a drone on the planet, and China is also expected to launch its very first mission to Mars in July.
The Al-Amal probe is part of a larger project: the establishment of human habitat on Mars in the next 100 years.
Dubai, the most famous of the seven emirates, has hired architects to imagine a Martian city and recreate it in its desert under the name of “Science City“, at a cost of around 500 million dirhams (more than 120 million euros).
Several dozen probes, mostly American, have left for the red planet since the 1960s. Many have failed to reach their destination.
The desire to explore Mars then diminished until it was confirmed, less than ten years ago, that water had flowed on its surface.
“We have a strategy to contribute to the global effort to develop technologies and scientific work that will be useful the day humanity decides to send a man to Mars“said Omran Sharaf.
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