UAE Makes History Hope Probe Enters Mars Orbit

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What has happened?

The United Arab Emirates is celebrating its first mission at Mars.
It has put a probe called Hope in orbit around the planet, making it only the fifth spacefaring entity to do so after the US, the Soviet Union, Europe and India.

Hope was developed by UAE scientists in the US.
It was launched in July 2020 from the Tanegashima Space Centre in Japan aboard,
A Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ H-II A rocket and its launch became the 45th for H-II A.

Carrying three instruments, including a high-resolution camera and a spectrometer,
The spacecraft is on an orbital mission to collect data on Martian climate dynamics and help scientists understand why Mars’s atmosphere is decaying into space.
Hope is the UAE’s fourth space mission and first interplanetary one.
The previous three were all Earth-observation satellites.
Once it is successfully able to reach the planet, it will start orbiting the planet. Its overall mission life is one Martian year, which is about 687 days on Earth.
The mission is one of three launched to Mars from Earth in July.
The other two — China’s Tianwen-1 dual orbiter-rover and Perseverance from NASA.
The spacecraft called Amal, Arabic for Hope
The timing of the mission is crucial as it was launched at a time when Earth and Mars were aligned at their closest points around the Sun.

The primary objective of the mission is to study Martian weather dynamics.
By correlating the lower atmosphere and upper atmosphere conditions, the probe will look into how weather changes the escape of hydrogen and oxygen into space.
By measuring how much hydrogen and oxygen is spilling into space, scientists will be able to look into why Mars lost so much of its early atmosphere and liquid water.
Over the next two months, the spacecraft will continue to move into its final orbital position — around 20,000-43,000 kilometres about the planet.
The distance is calculated in a way that allows the craft to use all three instruments to capture a complete view of the Martian atmosphere every nine days for the next two years.
It is expected to create the first complete portrait of the planet’s atmosphere.
With the information gathered during the mission, scientists will have a better understanding of the climate dynamics of different layers of Mars’ atmosphere.
Al-Amal will be the first “true weather satellite” orbiting around the planet.
But the UAE also wants the mission to inspire the country’s youth to take up careers in the sciences.
The government also hopes that the mission will boost the UAE’s science and technology sector.

No human has set foot on Mars yet because the atmosphere on Mars is very thin, Consisting of mostly carbon dioxide with no breathable oxygen, making it difficult for astronauts to survive there.
Further, the landscape of Mars is freezing, with no protection from the Sun’s radiation or passing dust storms.
Therefore, more research, technology and testing is required to be able to send humans to Mars. NASA plans to do so by the 2030s.

In order to be captured by Mars’ gravity, the spacecraft had to pull off an intricate braking manoeuvre known as the Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI) to slow down its speed
It was approaching the planet at over 120,000km/h and had to execute a 27-minute burn on its braking engines, So that it could avoid the risk of missing its orbit or getting lost in deep space.
The manoeuvre was performed by the craft’s six Delta V Thrusters in the required time frame,
However, the ground controllers on Earth received the confirmation only 11 minutes
The delay was caused due to the time it took for the radio signals to cover the 190-million-km distance between Earth and Mars.