The Hope (Al Amal) probe will circle Mars in a 55-day orbit, analyzing its atmosphere.
MBRSC
The United Arab Emirates is headed to Mars for the first time on Tuesday. From Tanegashima, a Japanese island in the North Pacific Ocean, a Mitsubishi H-IIA amplifier will carry a car-sized probe known as “Al Amal” or “Hope” into space, and to the Red Planet.
The probe is expected to reach orbit around the red planet in early 2021. It is designed to give a complete picture of the Martian atmosphere, offering a holistic view of how the climate of Mars varies throughout the year.
How to see the launch of the Hope probe to Mars
Launch opens from Tanegashima, Japan Tuesday, July 14 at 1:51 pm PT. It will launch on a Mitsubishi H-IIA amplifier. The rocket is not as famous as the likes of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy rocketsBut it has a great launch history, with over 40 successful launches to its credit, primarily from Japanese satellite systems.
Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center will broadcast the launch live from Japan, which you can see through this link. Or tune in to the live stream below:
Great hope
Hope is the first interplanetary mission led by a Muslim-majority Arab country and, if successful, will add another nation to the list of Martian explorers.
“The intention was not to put a message or statement to the world,” Sarah Al Amiri, president of the UAE Council of Scientists and deputy project manager for the Emirates Mars Mission, told CNET in March. “It was, for us, more of an internal reinforcement than the UAE is all about.” The historic launch is slated to air live worldwide.
The satellite will study the connections between the upper and lower atmospheres of Mars and examine what causes the loss of hydrogen and oxygen in space. It will collect data for two years after reaching its orbit around Mars in February 2021. There is an option to extend the mission until 2025.
Aboard Hope are three instruments that will allow the probe to study the Martian atmosphere more intensively. There is a high resolution camera known as the Emirates eXploration Imager (EXI), a UV camera known as the Emirates Mars Ultraviolet Spectrometer (EMUS), and an infrared scanning camera called the Emirates Mars InfraRed Spectrometer (EMIRS).
