Dubai: UAE’s Mars Mission, the first interplanetary exploration undertaken by an Arab nation, today announced it will enter Mars orbit at 7.42pm (UAE time) on February 9, Tuesday. After successfully completing its seven-month cruise to Mars, the UAE’s Mars Mission Hope Probe is just days away from the most critical part of its historic voyage to the Red Planet — the critical manoeuvre that will define the success or failure of the mission to place its orbiter, the Hope Probe, into Mars orbit. The Mars Orbital Insertion (MOI) manoeuvre involves reversing the spacecraft and firing the Hope probe’s six Delta-V thrusters in a 27-minute deceleration ‘burn’ to rapidly slow the speed of the spacecraft from 121,000km/hr to 18,000km/hr, and will see the Operations Team confirming whether the Probe has achieved a stable capture orbit around Mars.