As the UAE gears up for the expected arrival of the Hope Probe to the planet Mars on February 9, HH Sheikh Mohammed, Ruler of Dubai, has sent out a message celebrating the near-completion of the Emirates Mars Mission to the red planet.
“We are nine days away from the arrival of the Hope probe to the planet Mars and the registration of the first Arab and Islamic presence on the red planet. We will be the fifth country in history to reach the red planet. The expected success rate to enter the orbit of Mars is 50 percent. But we have achieved 90 percent of our goals in building our cadres and knowledge,” wrote His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai in Arabic on Twitter to his more than 10 million followers.
He included the hashtag “#Arab_to_Mars” in Arabic, further celebrating the achievement as a milestone for Arabs everywhere.
تفصلنا ٩ أيام عن وصول مسبار الأمل لكوكب المريخ وتسجيل أول حضور عربي وإسلامي على الكوكب الأحمر..سنكون الدولة الخامسة تاريخياً التي تصل للكوكب الأحمر.. نسبة النجاح المتوقعة لدخول مدار المريخ ٥٠٪ .. ولكننا حققنا ٩٠٪ من أهدافنا في بناء كوادرنا ومعارفنا
#العرب_إلى_المريخ pic.twitter.com/8pK5eRyhKW— HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) February 1, 2021
The Hope Probe was initially launched on July 20, 2020 from Tanegashima, Japan, in conjunction with the Dubai-based space mission’s control team operating out of the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre. The spacecraft has since travelled on a seven-month, 493,500,000-kilometre journey to reach Mars orbit.
As Sheikh Mohammed mentioned, this makes the United Arab Emirates the fifth player to reach Mars, after the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the European Space Agency and India.
The MOI, which is scheduled to occur on February 9, is the most critical part of the mission, in which the stresses on the spacecraft of all engines firing at once are far beyond those at launch. The complex maneuver will be completed with a 22-minute two-way radio delay from Earth. This requires the spacecraft to be highly autonomous.
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