The mission to Mars has been something that has been chased by quite a few countries off late, and a surprise entry on this list is the United Arab Emirates. The Emirates Mars mission aims to capture the most comprehensive picture yet of the Red Planet. It is set to launch from Japan this week making history as the Arab’s first-ever interplanetary mission. It is to be launched from Japan and it is expected to be delayed due to the weather conditions.
The country aims to inspire its youth to go into STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), and has therefore named the spacecraft, ‘Al Amal’, which translates to ‘Hope’. This is an unprecedented feat for the Gulf country since most missions take at least a decade to develop, while this was done in a period of just 6 years. Approximately 450 engineers and technicians worked on the Hope probe for six years.
The probe is touted to reach Mars over the next seven months and is expected to spend an entire Martian year in orbit which is 687 days. Over the course of the orbit, it is to collect various data about the planet’s atmosphere which could potentially solve the riddle as to why it is now uninhabitable.
(Source: CNN)