UAE's Hope Probe successfully enters Mars' orbit
Dubai's Burj Khalifa is lit up in red with an slogan reading in Arabic, "Mission accomplished" on February 9, 2021, as the UAE's "Al-Amal" — Arabic for "Hope" — probe successfully entered Mars' orbit, making history as the Arab world's first interplanetary mission.
The United Arab Emirates Mars mission Hope Probe successfully entered the orbit of Mars at 8:13pm local time (4:13pm GMT) on Tuesday, making the UAE's space agency the fifth in the world to achieve the feat, the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre announced.
After Hope Probe's orbit entry, UAE scientists and engineers will spend two months testing the spacecraft and its on-board scientific instruments before the orbiter will transition to its science orbit, the Dubai-based MBRSC said.
In its capture orbit, Hope Probe's nearest point above Mars' surface is 1,000 km while its farthest point is 49,380 km.
"During this stage, the ground control at Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai will conduct Three Transition to Science maneuvers to move the probe from its capture to science orbit ... by April," said Omran Ahmed Al Hammadi, head of the Science Data Centre for Hope Probe.
Hope Probe's science orbit is elliptical, between 20,000 km and 43,000 km above Mars' surface and with an inclination of 25 degrees. In this orbit, the spacecraft can complete one orbit of Mars every 55 hours and will capture a full planetary sample every nine days.
With its three scientific instruments, Hope Probe will map a complete portrait of the Martian atmosphere and study its seasonal and daily changes, while the more than one terabyte (1,000 GB) of new data the spacecraft is expected to collect will be shared with over 200 academic and scientific institutions worldwide for free, according to MBRSC.
