The United Arab Emirates and Mars

Chapter 1 · 2020 – 2024 The Hope probe

For their first interplanetary mission, the United Arab Emirates sent to Mars an orbiter the size of a small car, built in partnership with American universities. It arrived successfully and drew a portrait of the Martian atmosphere at the scale of the whole planet.

A probe built together

The Emirates Mars Mission is led by the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre. Its partners are the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, LASP, Arizona State University and the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. The spacecraft, Hope, about the size of a small car, was built at LASP by a joint team. It carries three instruments: a multiband camera, EXI, and an ultraviolet spectrometer, EMUS, built at LASP, and a thermal infrared spectrometer, EMIRS, built by Arizona State University. More than 150 engineers and scientists have worked on its development and discoveries.

The journey

Hope lifted off on July 19, 2020, from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center. It was part of a multinational fleet of spacecraft that left for Mars in July 2020, with China’s Tianwen-1 and America’s Perseverance. On February 9, 2021, it entered orbit around Mars. The next day, the EXI camera took its first science image.

Planet-wide weather

From a high orbit, Hope was to provide an unprecedented global view of the Martian atmosphere: characterize the lower atmosphere to understand the climate and build a global weather map, correlate lower- and upper-atmosphere conditions to explain how weather affects the escape of hydrogen and oxygen, and study those two elements in the upper atmosphere. Its prime mission was planned for two years.

In April 2022, NASA and the Emirates agreed to share data between Hope and the American orbiter MAVEN. In August 2022 the two teams published the first observations of “patchy proton aurora”: Hope saw highly variable aurora across the whole day side of the planet, a sign that the solar wind was then striking the upper atmosphere directly. In April 2023 Hope presented its observations of Deimos, the small moon of Mars, passed at about a hundred kilometers, the closest flyby since the American Viking 2. They suggest that Deimos may not be a captured asteroid but a piece of rock from an impact on Mars. That same year the mission was extended into 2024.

Sources: LASP, “EMM” page (launch on July 19, 2020, arrival on February 9, 2021, the Emirates’ first interplanetary mission, objectives, instruments and builders, partners, small-car-size spacecraft built at LASP, two-year prime mission); LASP, April 2023 release (Deimos at about 100 km, closest flyby since Viking 2, results from EMUS, EMIRS and EXI, extension into 2024, more than 150 engineers and scientists); NASA, “NASA, UAE Mars Missions Agree to Share Science Data,” April 12, 2022; NASA, “MAVEN and EMM Make First Observations of Patchy Proton Aurora at Mars,” August 31, 2022; NASA History, “25 Years of Continuous Robotic Mars Exploration” (the July 2020 fleet, arrival on February 9, 2021); LASP, February 2021 articles, and Arizona State University, July 2020, via a search (Tanegashima, first image the day after arrival).

Chapter 2 · 2019 – 2026 Astronauts and the Moon

The Emirates have not settled for probes. In a few years they sent two astronauts into space and committed to the American lunar program.

Two astronauts

In 2019 Hazzaa Almansoori became the first Emirati to fly to space, on a short mission to the International Space Station. In 2023 a second astronaut, Sultan Al Neyadi, joined the station on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 mission. Two more astronaut candidates then trained at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The Gateway airlock

In 2020 the Emirates were among the original signers of the Artemis Accords, a set of principles for the peaceful exploration of space. The Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre then announced with NASA that it would provide the Crew and Science Airlock module for Gateway, the future space station orbiting the Moon, as well as an Emirati astronaut who will fly to the station on an Artemis mission. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson saw in the airlock a way to prepare to send humanity to Mars.

Sources: NASA, “NASA, United Arab Emirates Announce Artemis Lunar Gateway Airlock” (Hazzaa Almansoori in 2019, Sultan Al Neyadi in 2023 on Crew-6, two candidates in Houston, Artemis Accords in 2020, the Gateway airlock, the Emirati astronaut, Bill Nelson’s statement). The exact date of the airlock announcement does not appear in the text consulted.