The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is headed for Mars.
The country launched its first interplanetary mission yesterday (July 19) in an ambitious attempt to develop its science and technology sectors. the Emirates Mars Mission, also called Hope, took off from Japan after multiple delays due to bad weather and smoothly began its journey to Mars.
But the spacecraft still has a lot of work to do before joining the fleet of Mars orbiters working around the Red Planet.
Related: UAE Hope Mars Orbiter: Here Are 6 Things You Should Know
Plus: UAE’s Hope mission to Mars in photos
First, Hope will have to make the journey itself, and there are many things that could go wrong between launch and arrival. In particular, starting about a month after launch, the spacecraft will need to execute a series of what engineers call trajectory correction maneuvers that will navigate the spacecraft to Mars.
Hope is equipped with star trackers which you will use to compare the starry sky you see with the views that mission personnel have calculated you should see. The spacecraft will use both trajectory maneuvers and star trackers to ensure it remains on course for the remaining six months of the cruise, a difficult feat.
“It’s a very small goal,” said Pete Withnell, Hope program manager at the University of Colorado Boulder, during a press conference on July 9. “It’s equivalent to an archer hitting a two-millimeter target a kilometer away. So it’s not for the faint of heart.”
Then, of course, there is the matter of orbiting Mars. The red planet is a notoriously difficult destination to reach, and over half of all missions launched to our dusty neighbor fail somewhere along the way.
Hope is expected to reach Mars in February 2021, with the exact date yet to be determined. The spacecraft will settle into a single equatorial orbit, rotating around the planet’s midline every 55 hours to improve study how the climate and atmosphere of Mars they change over time.
The $ 200 million spacecraft will remain in operation for at least a full Martian year, just under two Earth years, to give scientists an initial glimpse of seasonal changes in the planet’s atmosphere.
Of course, even a smooth launch does not guarantee that the spacecraft will survive the challenges that await it. However the UAE is not meeting all their hopes on the mission successfully completing all of your goals and the project can still be a success even if something goes wrong.
Omran Sharaf, mission leader for the Hope spacecraft, admitted the project was “risky,” but said the UAE knew they would enter the effort and accepted the risks. “For the Emirates, it’s more about the journey,” Sharaf said during the same press conference.
Facing the challenge head-on was as important as the success of the mission.
“It doesn’t mean that the mission has failed if we can’t get there,” he continued. “Failure is an option? Yes, it is an option. But as long as we learn and move forward, it is just a setback, it is not a failure for us.”
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