UAE's first mission to Mars, ' Hope' has been successfully launched today at 5:58 p.m. EDT (2158 GMT) from Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. The mission was postponed twice due to unfavourable weather conditions. The mission was scheduled for July 14, 2020, from Tanegashima Space Center, Japan, which was rescheduled to July 16, 2020. The launch was again rescheduled and was expected to take place between July 20-22, 2020, depending on favourable weather conditions. The spacecraft must take off from the Earth in July as during this time, the Earth and Mars orbit the sun at different rates and are aligned at their closest points only once every two years.
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#Live from Tanegashima Space Center in Japan: The #UAE marks history with an unprecedented space achievement for the Arab region as the #HopeProbe successfully launches and flies high into space!#FirstArabicCountDown #EmiratesMarsMission
— UAEGov (@uaegov) July 19, 2020
The UAE Space Agency and The Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center have announced that due to continued thunderstorms, clouds and unstable weather conditions in the coming days on Tanegashima Island, the launch site for the Emirates Mars Mission’ Hope Probe.
— UAEGov (@uaegov) July 16, 2020
The launch is now scheduled to take place between the 20th and 22nd July 2020, depending on improved weather. The precise time of the launch will be confirmed in due course.
— UAEGov (@uaegov) July 16, 2020
Mission Hope
In 2015, UAE announced its first mission to Mars and named it 'Hope'. The aim of the mission was to create mankind’s first integrated model of the Red planet’s atmosphere. The mission will be executed by UAE's space Agency-- Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre.
About the Spacecraft
The spacecraft weighs more than 1500 kg and is expected to carry scientific instruments such as Emirates eXploration Imager (EXI), the Emirates Mars Ultraviolet Spectrometer (EMUS), the Emirates Mars InfraRed Spectrometer (EMIRS) and more. Emirates eXploration Imager (EXI) is a high-resolution camera while the Emirates Mars Ultraviolet Spectrometer (EMUS) and the Emirates Mars InfraRed Spectrometer (EMIRS) are UV imaging spectrograph and FTIR scanning spectrometer respectively.
What all mission 'Hope' will collect?
After its launch, Hope will orbit Mars for around 200 days and will enter Mars in the year 2021, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the founding of UAE.
Hope will orbit around the planet Mars to study its atmosphere and the interaction to the outer world. It will also collect data on the climate of Mars. This data will be helpful to scientists to study the decaying of Mars' atmosphere into space.
As per the website of Mission Mars, the mission will answer key questions about the global Martian atmosphere and the loss of hydrogen and oxygen gases into space over the span of one Martian year.
The UAE's Ministry of Cabinet Affairs state that this mission will gather 1000 GBs of information, helping scientists to build a model of Martian atmosphere, provide them clues about the change in atmosphere, help in linking the connection between current and the existing weather of the planet and also to study the loss mechanisms of Mars’ atmosphere.
Reasons behind choosing Mars
It is speculated that the atmosphere of the Mars was warm and allowed water flow through its surface, outlining the possibility that life existed on Mars too, like Earth. As per NASA, almost everywhere we find water on Earth, we find life. Thus, this makes scientists more curious about the planet Mars than any other planet.
It can also be said that if Mars allowed water flow through its surface in the past, 3.5-3.8 billion years ago, and if the speculations about the existence of microbial life on its surface in the past are true, then it possible that the life exists on 'Mars' though in selected regions. Also, scientists are doing research if the planet could be inhabited by humans or not.
As per the Planetary Society, Mars has been unfriendly to Earth’s attempts to visit it and more missions have been planned to reach Mars than any other planet or place in the solar system, barring the Moon. Apart from UAE's Hope Mission, the US, China and the European Union have future missions to Mars.
NASA's Mission to Mars
In 2015, NASA's Mars Mission revealed that the planet’s atmospheric gas is being lost to space. This indicates that Mars’ atmosphere is too cold and thin to provide stability to liquid water, which is essential for life. Dry river beds and minerals (which can only be formed in the presence of water) hints that the Martian atmosphere in the past was warmer and allowed water to flow on its surface. In the year 2017, NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft revealed that solar wind and radiation had stripped the Martian atmosphere, indicating the presence of life a billion years ago.
In 2020, between July 30-August 15, NASA has planned to launch its Perseverance rover, which is a part of its Mars 2020 Mission. The mission will collect data on the ancient life, rock and soil samples for demonstration and for future exploration of the planet.
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