After 7 months and 500 million kilometres, the Emirates Mars Mission has to endure 27 nail-biting minutes of engine burn theregister.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theregister.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
With a countdown of just two days to go until the UAE’s first-ever interplanetary mission arrives at Mars, the Hope Probe is now approaching the most critical stage of its historic, seven-month, 493 million kilometre journey through space.
For everyone involved, from the scientists to the operations team to the millions of fascinated stargazers across the Arab world, the evening of 9 February will be nail-bitingly tense as the probe performs a 27-minute deceleration ‘burn’ some 2,363km from the surface of the Red Planet.
The spacecraft, which launched from Japan’s Tanegashima Island on 20 July 2020 after several days of bad weather, is set to capture into Mars orbit on Tuesday evening at 7.42pm, UAE time.
Dubai: All eyes are on the UAE Hope Probe’s crucial Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI), which is scheduled to take place on Tuesday. If successful, the UAE will become only the fifth country or entity in the world to reach Mars and the third country to achieve the feat on its first attempt.
However, it will only be by September that the first set of data captured by Hope Probe of Martian atmosphere will be released to the science community and the public, Omran Ahmed Al Hammadi, Science Data Centre Lead Hope Probe, told
Gulf News during a press briefing at the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) over the weekend.