By: Nour Hany

News headlines all over the world have all been about the UAE’S Hope Probe that succeeded in reaching the Red Planet, Mars, on its first attempt. Once the Emirati Mars Mission entered orbit, they sent a signal confirming their arrival. Since the 1960s, when humans first succeeded in arriving at Mars, half of the missions have failed, so it is a huge achievement for the United Arab Emirates, as they succeeded in getting to the Red Planet on their very first trial.

“The probe, along with its three scientific instruments, is expected to create the first complete portrait of the Martian atmosphere. The instruments will collect different data points on the atmosphere to also gauge seasonal and daily changes.”—CNN. By doing so, scientists will have an idea on weather and climate dynamics in different layers of the Martian atmosphere. As a result, light will be shed on how energy and particles, such as hydrogen and oxygen, escape Mars or move through the atmosphere.

This mission was one of three that launched to Mars in July: NASA’s Perseverance Rover, China’s Tianwen-1 Mission, and the Hope Probe. Each mission was planned to go as follows: Tianwen-1 will orbit the planet and land on it, Hope will orbit the planet, and Perseverance will land on Mars.

It is really important to shed light on the team of engineers who worked on the Hope Probe, as their average age was 27 years old, with women shaping 34% of that team along with 80% of the science team who were also women.

Her Excellency Sarah bint Yousef Al Amiri, who is not only the Deputy Project Manager for the mission, but also the Minister of State for Advanced Sciences, and Chair of the UAE Space Agency and the United Arab Emirates Council of Scientists said: “I started working on this program at the end of 2013, and it has been a series of challenges that we have sometimes thought were insurmountable from the technical perspective and also from doing this for the very first time”.

“I am grateful for the performance of the spacecraft, and what has made this mission remarkable; it is not only the 200 Emiratis working on this, but it is the 450 people from different continents, and from different backgrounds and beliefs. This is truly an international endeavor, and this is what science needs to be. This is what exploration is all about.”

References

edition.cnn.com

www.space.com