The United Arab Emirates (UAE) doesn’t mess around when it comes to their space program — they’re taking big strides in their mission to launch a shuttle to Mars.
The Hope satellite is scheduled to launch just six years after the creation of the UAE Space Agency (Image Source: UAE Space Agency)
In July 2014, president Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan announced their plans to send a satellite to Mars by July 2020. This month, the Hope Mars Mission — also called the Emirates Mars Mission — is set to launch to the Red Planet this month for a February 2021 rendezvous. That year would also be the 50th anniversary of the country.
The launch comes just six years after not only the announcement of Hope but the creation of the UAE’s space program itself. That’s right, the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre, where the satellite was built, wasn’t created until the year after the announcement — and until then, the UAE had virtually no space program to speak of. America hasn’t seen that sort of haul-ass rush since the Apollo program.
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The Hope mission will be the first major project spearheaded by the small Middle Eastern country. It’s actually the first planetary science mission to be led by an Arab-Islamic country, period. The satellite is set to launch from Tanegashima Space Center in Japan aboard an H-IIA rocket.
“The UAE is on the verge of making history, after turning its dream of becoming the first Arabic and Islamic country to send a spacecraft to Mars into reality,” said Ahmad Belhoul al Falasi, chairman of the United Arab Emirates Space Agency in a 2019 statement. “This monumental endeavor is the culmination of the efforts of a skilled and experienced team of young Emiratis, who, with the support of the nation and its visionary leadership, will secure the UAE’s position at the forefront of space exploration and the international space sector.”
The mini-cooper-sized probe was built in collaboration with the University of Colorado Boulder, University of California, Berkeley and Arizona State University. Its main mission will be to study Mars’ weather and climate. In particular, Hope has three main objectives:
Understand climate dynamics and the global weather map through characterizing the lower atmosphere of Mars.
Explain how the weather changes the escape of hydrogen and oxygen through correlating the lower atmosphere conditions with the upper atmosphere.
Understand the structure and variability of hydrogen and oxygen in the upper atmosphere, as well as identifying why Mars is losing them into space.
Image Source: New York Times / Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center
The current status
The Emirates Mars Mission has a total mass (including fuel) of 1500 kg. It is a hexagonal prism, 7.78 feet (2.37 meters) wide by 9.5 feet (2.90 meters) tall. It consists of honeycomb aluminum panels containing composite face sheets, with three solar panel wings affixed to the top platform. The solar panels provide 600 watts at Mars, charging batteries to run the spacecraft. The spacecraft requirement is 477 watts. The shuttle’s high-gain directional antenna allows communication rates of 1.6 Mbps at the minimum Earth-Mars distance to 250 kbps at its furthest point. There are also three low-gain antennas.
Propulsion is provided by four to six 120-N thrusters mounted on the bottom of the spacecraft, using monopropellant hydrazine and a GHe pressurant tank, with maneuvering and attitude control via 8 to 12 5-N reaction control system thrusters and a set of reaction wheels. Positional and orientation knowledge is provided by star trackers and coarse Sun sensors.
Once the Hope Probe separates from the upper stage, an automated sequence will begin to wake up the probe. The central computer will boot up and turn on the heaters to prevent the fuel from freezing. It will then deploy the solar array panels and use the sun sensors to find the sun so that the solar arrays begin to charge the onboard battery. With the power switched on, Hope will begin transmitting data back home to the NASA Deep Space Network ground station in Madrid, Spain.
After the communications system is checked out, the control system will ensure that the spacecraft is pointed in the right direction. The propulsion system onboard will ensure detailed maneuvers to refine the Hope Probe’s trajectory towards Mars.
Once it completes the seven-month journey and arrives at its objective, Hope begins the Mars Orbit Insertion phase. Nearly half of the fuel will be spent to slow the probe down enough to capture Mars’ orbit. The fuel burn (firing the Delta V thrusters) will last approximately 30 minutes and will reduce the speed of the spacecraft from over 75,186 mph (121,000 kmh) to around 11,184 mph (18,000 kmh).
Hope is now ready to start its mission, collecting two years worth of data, with an optional two-year extension which would take the mission into 2025.
“This is the Arab world’s version of President John F. Kennedy’s moonshot — it’s a vision for the future that can engage and excite a new generation of Emirati and Arab youth,” said Yousef al Otaiba, the UAE’s ambassador to the United States, during the UAE Embassy’s National Day celebration in 2015, according to The National.
But the UAE doesn’t plan on stopping there. By 2117, they hope to build a habitable settlement, a project that no one who starts on will ever see completed in their lifetime.
“We chose the epic challenge of reaching Mars because epic challenges inspire and motivate us,” Mohammed bin Rashid said 2014 when the Hope project was announced. “The moment we stop taking on such challenges is the moment we stop moving forward.”
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
