The UAE’s first historic launch for Mars It has been delayed two days due to bad weather conditions at the launch site.
UAE Hope spaceship It was scheduled to take off today (July 14) from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan aboard an H-IIA rocket before the weather interfered. The launch is now targeting Thursday (July 16) at 4:43 pm EDT (2043 GMT), according to a statement from the mission’s official Twitter feed.
You can watch the launch live on Space.com courtesy of the UAE Space Agency and Dubai One news channel, or directly through the last two organizations here.
A ‘hope’ from Mars: UAE’s first interplanetary spacecraft aims to make history
The UAE Space Agency and the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center, in collaboration with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, have announced a delay in the launch of the UAE Mission Mars Hope probe due to weather conditions at the site of launch of Tanegashima Island in Japan. July 14, 2020
The $ 200 million spacecraft, also called the Emirates Mars Mission, represents the Arab region’s first foray into interplanetary space and an ambitious step for the UAE, which first participated in a satellite launch in 2009 by partnering with a company. South Korean.
If all goes well, Hope will spend about seven months traveling to Mars, arriving in early 2021. The spacecraft will then orbit the equator of the Red Planet for a full year of Mars (almost two Earth years). studying the planet’s climate and atmosphere.
The spacecraft is one of three bound for Mars in the coming weeks, during the precious orbital alignment when the Red Planet is easiest to reach from Earth: China’s Tianwen-1 lander and NASA’s Perseverance Mars 2020 rover are also on the launch list later this month.
Email Meghan Bartels at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
