First Attempt- First Success

"To the people of the UAE, to the Arab and Muslim nations, we announce the successful arrival to Mars orbit. Praise be to God," said Omran Sharaf, The Project Manager of the Emirates Mars Mission at 7:14PM KSA Time.

The UAE’s first interplanetary mission reached Mars on Tuesday, 7th Feb, and successfully entered the orbit of the Planet.

The Emirates Mars Mission, known as Hope Probe, sent back signals after a 30-minuteblackout, confirming that the probe was successfully in the orbit of the Red Planet. The blackout occurred when the probe was on the other side of Mars, the side not visible to us here on Earth, while entering orbit. “7 years of work crowned with success! The Hope Probe is now in Mars' orbit.” Tweeted the Official Twitter Handle of the Mission @HopeMarsMission at 8:25PM, 9th February, KSA Time. When the probe was declared a success, it made UAE the fifth entity in history to make it to Mars, with India being the previous one back in 2015 when its Mangalyaan Mission became a success. The ones before UAE and India were the USA, Soviet Union, and the European Space Agency. This also meant that the UAE has now become the first Arab and the first Muslim country to achieve this great feat.

The amazing ambitions of this mission do not stop there! The Mission will provide the world with the first ever complete picture of the Martian atmosphere. Also, the instruments onboard the Probe will record day-to-day changes in the atmosphere of Mars. The Emirates Mars Mission was one of the three Martian missions launched in July 2020,with the EMM being launched on the MHI H2A Japanese Rocket on July 20th 2020. The other two missions are-

China’s first interplanetary mission, named Tianwein-1. It will first orbit the planet from Feb 10th, 2021, and then land a few months later.

USA’s Perseverance Rover, which will land on Mars on Feb 18th, 2021.

Just as Omran Sharaf announced the good news, video clips and pictures from the making of the probe were displayed on the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. Major structures and monuments across the Emirates were glowing red in the honor of the color of Martian surface, due to the presence of iron-oxide.

The Team Who Did it

One of the most praised facts about this mission is that the average age of the team is 27,which is relatively a very young age compared to other major project teams like that of NASA’s Maven, USSR’s Viking or ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission. One fact that is even more impressive is that 34% of the Engineers’ team consisted of women, while 80% of the science team consisted of women. In fact, the deputy project manager for EMM, Her Excellency Sarah Al-Amiri, is also the chairperson of the UAE Space Agency.

The Final Phase-

While sailing through the endless space, the speed of the craft was more than 120700 KM/HR. But that speed had to be decreased to almost 17702 KM/HR if the probe wanted to successfully enter the Orbit of Mars. If this reduction did not happen, the probe would have been slingshot into the empty space.

And for such a significant reduction in the speed of the Hope Probe, it needed to turn around and then fire its engines in the opposite direction. Almost half of the Probe’s fuel is burnt in this phase, which space scientists refer to as the ‘most terrifying minutes of the 6-month long journey’.

The scientific name for this phase is ‘Mars Orbit Insertion Phase’, which in case of EMM lasted 30 minutes.

After the gravity of Mars captured Hope, it entered an elliptical orbit around the planet. it will come as close as 999 kms above the Martian surface and as distant as 49245 kms from it. It will take hope about 40 hours to complete one orbit of Mars.

hope will stay in this phase, called the capture orbit, between February and mid-May. During this phase, the UAE space agency We'll send some commands to the spacecraft to test the instruments and make observations of Mars to see if any instruments need repair.

After this, the Hope Probe will be maneuvered into the science orbit, which will allow the probe’s instrument to begin capturing scientific data of Mars.

The mission is expected to last two years, with the possibility of being extended for a third year. The Emirates Mars mission will provide the first ever global picture of weather and atmospheric conditions On Mars, and this data will be shared with the scientific community all around the world by the UAE Space Agency.

-Sayed Belal