After sending an astronaut into space last year, the United Arab Emirates will launch the first Arab probe to Mars on July 15 from Japan, the official WAM news agency said on Tuesday.
The “Emirates Mars Mission” is part of the project of this rich Gulf country to assert itself as a scientific and space power, becoming the first Arab country to put an unmanned probe, called ” Hope “, orbiting the red planet.
“The world will witness the launch of the + Hope + probe into space on Wednesday July 15, 2020 at 12.51 am (20.51 GMT) from the Japanese space center Tanegashima,” said the WAM agency. “The countdown to the launch begins after the Emirates’ successful transfer of the probe to Japan, on a journey that lasted more than 83 hours by land, air and sea,” she added.
The Minister of Advanced Sciences, Sarah Bent Youssef al-Amiri, also deputy head of the “Mars mission”, insisted on the “commitment” of the authorities to continue this project despite “the context of the global pandemic” of new coronavirus. “We are impatient to collectively celebrate the arrival of the probe on Mars in February 2021,” insisted the minister, quoted by WAM, adding that this date coincides with the 50th anniversary of the birth of the Emirates as a federation of seven members , including Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
In September 2019, Hazza al-Mansouri made history by becoming the first Emirati to travel to space. At 35, this fighter pilot is also the first astronaut from an Arab country to have walked on the International Space Station (ISS).
In the long term, the Emirates plan to build a “City of Sciences” to create living conditions on Mars in anticipation of the establishment of a human colony on the Red Planet by 2117.
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After sending an astronaut into space last year, the United Arab Emirates will launch the first Arab probe to Mars on July 15 from Japan, the official WAM news agency said on Tuesday.
The “Emirates Mars Mission” is part of the project of this rich Gulf country to assert itself as a …
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