Despite an economic slowdown, the UAE government is setting an example to the entire Arab world with Hope spacecraft, ready for Mission Mars this summer. According to Omran Sharaf, the Project Manager of the Dubai Mars Mission, this new spaceship will make multiple stops. It will be launched from Dubai and will make stops in Japan and Colorado before reaching Mars.
Last December, there was a simulation exercise at the University of Colorado campus where the students enjoyed a live demonstration of the 'Hope Spaceship' prototype. It was mounted on a stand, and its size is similar to that of a Mini Cooper.
It’s a dream project to see this spaceship traveling to SpaceSpace at a speed of 10,000 miles per hour and orbiting around Mars. The simulation exercise aims to check the spacecraft's navigation and control system and find out how it’ll function in real-time after landing on Mars.
It is a proud moment for the UAE as this the first time they’ll be sending a spaceship directly in SpaceSpace. A large number of Emirati's are qualified engineers. The nation invested in its youth workforce to train them and increase their knowledge in Science, research, and technology. It's a futuristic plan of the government to continue its growth when there is a scarcity of Petroleum. Furthermore, the Emiratis very well understood that it's essential to invest in knowledge-based industries.
Sarah al-Amiri, UAE's minister of state for advanced sciences said, “How do you develop highly skilled people that can take on higher risks? That was the reason to go to space exploration.”
Meanwhile, it is a novel approach from the UAE’s side as they never tried to everything by themselves as India did. In that case, it could have taken a long time, and the challenges to fail are also high. The nation instead took a quick step to collaborate with other nations and scientists team having expertise in Space Missions. Furthermore, they can efficiently train and prepare future engineers for more significant challenging missions.
Omran Sharaf, Emirate's Mars Mission project manager, said, “The government wanted to create that ecosystem or at least help in creating that ecosystem. Soon. They want to accelerate the process. Don’t start from scratch. Work with others, and let’s take it to the next level now. We’re going to learn a tremendous amount.”
The UAE will launch this spaceship on the exact time when the Red Planet Mars will be near to the Earth orbit in perfect alignment. It happens only once in every 26-months, and the traveling distance will reduce to 300 million miles and seven months.
At the same time, NASA and China will also launch their spaceship to Mars. This Emirati spaceship will hover around the orbit while the other spacecraft will land on Mars. Hope is actually a medium size, low budget spaceship but it's not a technical triumph.
Ms. Al-Amiri said, “We were requested to send a spacecraft to Mars, but not send space junk to send a spacecraft that not only captures an image of the planet to declare you’re there but provides you with valuable scientific data.”
Although in September 2014, India sent its spaceship in Mars orbit, it lacked scientific instruments to capture sensitive data. Whereas, MAVEN, which is a NASA probe spaceship has all the equipment to study the Mars atmosphere and record sensitive data. MAVEN recorded essential facts about how quickly the solar wind strips the Martian atmosphere. After getting this information, scientists got a clue about Mars’s cold and barren weather.
Ms. al-Amiri said they’re sending Spaceship Hope to Mar’s orbit so that it can collect meaningful information that’ll help to bridge the gap in MAVEN's findings. She also said, “You need to understand the role that Mars plays in the loss of its atmosphere”.
In 2018, MAVEN recorded a planet-wide dust storm raging on Mars, which increased the hydrogen level in Mars's upper atmosphere. MAVEN can't explain why it happened, but, HOPE is equipped with an infrared spectrometer, an ultraviolet spectrometer, and a camera.
These scientific gadgets will help to get additional insights. It'll capture data that’ll probably explain why it happened. Thus, the new spaceship HOPE will provide scientists with deeper insights into the Martian weather.
MAVEN’s principal investigator and the University of Colorado professor, Bruce M. Jakosky, said, “That’s one of the fundamental new measurements we haven’t seen before.” He is also one of the science team members for this Emirati Mars Mission.
