The Hope Probe succeeds in reaching the Red Planet, and the UAE is leading a new stage in Arab scientific history

His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the State, may God protect him, congratulated the people of the UAE, residents and the Arab nation on the success of the Hope Probe in its mission, praising the exceptional effort of the people of the Emirates who turned the dream into reality, and achieved the aspirations of generations of Arabs who kept hoping to set foot. entrenched in the space race, which has been the preserve of a limited number of countries.

His Highness the President of the State said: "This achievement would not have been achieved without perseverance on a project whose idea appeared at the end of 2013 by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, "may God preserve him", who followed him moment by moment until he reached the I directed him in peace.” He also praised His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, who harnessed all support for him to achieve hope and see it and the world sees it with us with amazement and appreciation. “All greetings to their Highness and the national team of researchers and scientists.”

His Highness praised the project as a result of a sincere and tireless institutional effort and an ambitious vision aimed at serving the Emirati national project in particular, humanity and the scientific community in general, and fulfilling the hopes of millions of Arabs to have a firm footing in the field of space exploration.

This evening, the UAE entered history as the first Arab country to reach Mars, and the fifth country in the world to achieve this achievement after the Hope Probe, as part of the Emirates Mars Exploration Project, succeeded in reaching the Red Planet, capping the first fifty years since its founding in 1971. With an unprecedented historical and scientific event on the level of previous Mars missions, the Emirati Mars exploration mission aims to provide scientific evidence that humans have not previously found about the Red Planet.

The “Hope Probe” succeeded at 7:42 pm today in entering the capture orbit around the red planet, completing the most difficult stages of its space mission, after a journey that lasted about seven months in space, in which it traveled more than 493 million kilometers, to form its arrival to the planet. Al-Ahmar is in preparation for the start of its scientific mission by providing a wealth of scientific data to the scientific community in the world, a milestone in the UAE’s accelerated development march, and for this achievement to be a celebration worthy of the golden jubilee of the establishment of the United Arab Emirates, summarizing its inspiring story, as a country that made the culture of the impossible a thought and an approach to work A live translation on the ground.

The UAE has become the first to reach the orbit of the Red Planet, among three other space missions that will reach Mars this February, which, in addition to the UAE, are led by the United States and China.

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, and His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, congratulated the people of the UAE and the Arab nation on achieving this historic achievement. Their Highnesses on following the historical moment from the ground control station of the Hope probe in Al Khawaneej in Dubai. His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Chairman of the Executive Council and Chairman of the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center, praised the team of the Emirates Mars Exploration Project, including male and female engineers from among the young national cadres, and the efforts they made over more than six years to transform the dream of Mars into a reality we celebrate today.

Greatest Golden Jubilee Celebration

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum stressed that "this historic achievement with the arrival of the Hope Probe to Mars is the greatest celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the UAE Federation... and lays the foundations for its new launch in the next fifty years... with dreams and ambitions that have no limits," adding, His Highness: We will continue to achieve achievements and build upon them greater and greater achievements.”

 His Highness pointed out that "the real achievement that we are proud of is our success in building Emirati scientific capabilities that constitute a qualitative addition to the global scientific community."

His Highness said: "We dedicate the achievement of Mars to the people of the Emirates and to the Arab peoples... Our success proves that the Arabs are able to restore their scientific status... and revive the glories of our ancestors whose civilization and knowledge illuminated the darkness of the world."

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum concluded by saying: "Our celebration of the Emirates Golden Jubilee is crowned at the Mars station. Our Emirati and Arab youth are invited to ride the Emirates Scientific Express train, which sped at full speed."

 

sustainable scientific renaissance

For his part, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, said that "the success of the Hope probe in reaching its orbit around Mars represents an Arab and Islamic achievement... that was achieved with the minds and arms of Zayed's sons and daughters, placing the country among the countries that It has reached the depths of space,” His Highness said, noting that “the UAE’s arrival to Mars celebrates the fifty-year journey in a way that befits the experience of our country and reflects its true image to the world.”

His Highness added, "The Emirates Mars Exploration Project paves the way for 50 new years of sustainable scientific renaissance in the UAE."

His Highness expressed his pride in this historic Emirati and Arab achievement, which was led by the national cadres of Emirati scientists and engineers, stressing that: "The UAE's real and most valuable wealth is the human being... and investing the nation in its sons and daughters is an essential foundation in all our policies and development strategies."

His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan said: "The UAE youth, armed with science and knowledge, will lead our development and renaissance march for the next fifty years. The Emirates Mars Exploration Project has contributed to building highly qualified Emirati cadres qualified to achieve more achievements in the space sector."

Space-sized achievement

In the same context, His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Chairman of the Executive Council and Chairman of the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center, said that "the success of the Hope probe in its historic space journey to reach its orbit around the red planet, is an Emirati and Arab achievement the size of space." His Highness affirmed that "the Emirates Mars Exploration Project marks a new chapter in the UAE's record of achievements in the field of space sciences on a global level, and supports the country's efforts to build a sustainable knowledge economy based on advanced technological industries."

His Highness congratulated His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, on this achievement, pointing out that “The UAE’s celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of its founding has become associated with reaching Mars.. This achievement places a great responsibility in front of future generations who will build on it in the next fifty years.”

million followers

Millions in the UAE, the Arab world and the world had watched with anticipation the historic moment for the Hope probe to enter the capture orbit around Mars, through huge live coverage transmitted by TV stations, Internet sites and social media platforms, as part of a major event organized in Dubai in the vicinity of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building ever built. The human being in the world, who, along with the main landmarks in the country and the Arab world, has been covered in the color of the red planet, in order to follow the crucial moments of the probe’s arrival, in the presence of international news agencies, representatives of the media, local and regional news sites, elite officials and members of the Emirates Mars Exploration Project team, “Probe of Hope.”

The event included many paragraphs that shed light on the Emirates Mars Exploration Project from idea to implementation, and the UAE's journey with the dream of space and how to achieve it through the qualification and preparation of Emirati scientific cadres with a great deal of experience and competence. The event also witnessed a dazzling laser display on the facade of the Burj Khalifa, which was implemented with high-level technology, which reviewed the journey of the Hope Probe, the stages the project has gone through, and the efforts of the Emirati cadres who participated in realizing this dream.

Demonstration and media meeting

Her Excellency Sarah bint Youssef Al Amiri, Minister of State for Advanced Technology, Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Emirates Space Agency, gave a detailed presentation in Arabic and English of the most important stage of the Hope Probe journey, which is the stage of entering Mars orbit, being the most important and dangerous, and crucial to what will lead to the future. exploratory mission.

The event included holding a media meeting between a number of members of the Emirates Mars Exploration Project team, "The Hope Probe", led by His Excellency Sarah Al Amiri, and representatives of local, regional and international media outlets. The Mars mission of the probe has unprecedented scientific goals in human history, and the next stages that the probe will go through throughout its mission to explore the Red Planet over the course of a full Martian year equivalent to two Earth years.

The event included direct video communication with the operations team and engineers at the ground control station at the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center in Al Khawaneej, Dubai. Hope probe in the last minutes of its journey in preparation for entering the orbit of Mars.

The success of the capture orbit entry phase

The decisive moments of the entry phase into the capture orbit around the red planet began at الساعة 7:30 eveningUAE time, with the Autonomous Probe of Hope, according to the programming operations that the work team had previously conducted before its launch, starting its six Delta V engines to slow its speed from 121 kilometers to 18 kilometers per hour, using half of what it carries fuel, in a process that took 27 minutes. The fuel combustion process has ended at الساعة7:57 evening to safely enter the probe into the capture orbit, and at الساعة 8:08 evening The ground station in Al Khawaneej received a signal from the probe that it had successfully entered the orbit of Mars, for the UAE to write its name in bold letters in the history of space missions to explore the Red Planet.

By successfully completing the stage of entering the capture orbit around Mars, the Hope probe has completed four main stages in its space journey since its launch on July 20, 2020 from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan aboard the H2A rocket, which are, in order: the launch stage, the stage of Early operations, space navigation, and entry into orbit. There are two stages left before him: the transition to the scientific orbit, and finally the scientific stage, where the probe begins its exploratory mission to monitor and analyze the climate of the Red Planet.

The first day of “Hope” around Mars

With the success of the stage of entering the capture orbit, the Hope probe began its first day around the planet Mars, and the ground station team was able to communicate with the probe to ensure that this stage, which was the most accurate and dangerous stage of the space mission, did not affect the probe, its subsystems and the scientific devices it carries .

According to what is planned, this process may take from 3 to 4 weeks, during which the team will be in constant contact with the probe 24 hours a day, through successive shifts, knowing that during this stage the probe will be able to take the first image of Mars within a week of its arrival. successfully to orbit capture.

Moving to the scientific orbit

After confirming the efficiency of the probe, its sub-systems and scientific devices, the project team will start implementing the next stage of the probe’s journey, which is moving to the scientific orbit through a set of operations to direct the probe’s path to transport it to this orbit safely, using more fuel that the probe carries on board. This is accurate monitoring of the location of the probe to ensure that it is in the correct orbit, after which comprehensive calibrations will be carried out for the probe systems (original and sub), similar to those that the team had conducted after the launch of the probe on the twentieth of last July, and calibration operations may extend and reset The probe systems are about 45 days, as each system is calibrated separately, knowing that each communication process with the probe at this stage takes between 11 to 22 minutes due to the distance between Earth and Mars.

scientific stage

 After the completion of all these operations, the final stage of the probe’s journey will begin, which is the scientific stage that is scheduled to begin next April. The Hope probe will provide the first complete picture of the climate of Mars and the weather conditions on its surface throughout the day and between the seasons of the year, making it the first observatory. Red Planet Air.

The probe mission will last for a full Martian year (687 Earth days), extending until April 2023, to ensure that the three scientific devices carried by the probe on board monitor all the required scientific data that humans have not previously reached about the Martian climate, and the probe mission may extend for a year. Another Martian, if required, to gather more data and reveal more secrets about the Red Planet.

The Hope probe carries on board three innovative scientific devices that are able to convey a comprehensive picture of the Martian climate and its various layers of atmosphere, giving the global scientific community a deeper understanding of the climatic changes taking place on the Red Planet and studying the causes of its atmosphere eroding.

These devices, which are the digital exploration camera, infrared spectrometer and ultraviolet spectrophotometer, monitor everything related to how the weather of Mars changes throughout the day, and between the seasons of the Martian year, in addition to studying the reasons for the fading of hydrogen and oxygen gases from the upper layer of the Martian atmosphere. , which constitute the basic units for the formation of water molecules, as well as investigating the relationship between the lower and upper atmospheric layers of Mars, observing atmospheric phenomena on the surface of Mars, such as dust storms, temperature changes, as well as the diversity of climate patterns according to the planet's diverse terrain.

The Hope probe will collect more than 1000 gigabytes of new data about Mars, which will be deposited in a scientific data center in the Emirates, and the project’s scientific team will index and analyze this data, which will be available to humanity for the first time, to be shared free of charge with the scientific community interested in science Mars around the world in the service of human knowledge.

golden jubilee project

The journey of the Emirates project to explore Mars, the "Probe of Hope", actually began as an idea seven years ago, through an exceptional ministerial retreat called by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum on Sir Bani Yas Island in late 2013, where His Highness led a brainstorm with members of The Council of Ministers and a number of officials reviewed with them a number of ideas to celebrate the golden jubilee of the establishment of the union in the year. The retreat on that day adopted the idea of ​​sending a mission to explore Mars, as a bold project, and an Emirati contribution to the scientific progress of mankind, in an unprecedented way.

And this idea turned into reality, when His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the State, may God protect him, issued a decree in 2014 establishing the Emirates Space Agency, to start work on a project to send the first Arab probe to Mars, which was called the “Probe of Hope.” The Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center will undertake the implementation and supervision of the design and implementation stages of the probe, while the agency will finance the project and supervise the necessary procedures for its implementation.

 

Challenging experience

Over the course of more than six years of work on the Hope Probe, designing, implementing and building from scratch, the project witnessed many challenges, the overcoming of which constituted an added value. The first of these challenges was the completion of the historic national mission to design and develop the probe within 6 years, so that its arrival coincides with the country’s celebrations of its fiftieth National Day, while similar space missions take 10 to 12 years to implement, as the Hope Probe team succeeded from high national cadres. Efficiency in this challenge, turning the unlimited support of rational leadership into an additional incentive that pushed them to do more.

And there was a new challenge represented in how to transfer the probe to the launch station in Japan in conjunction with the outbreak of the new Corona virus “Covid 19” globally, which resulted in the closure of airports and ports around the world, and the establishment of strict restrictions on movement between countries as part of the precautionary measures to combat the outbreak of the virus. And the work team had to develop alternative plans to transport the probe on time in light of this emerging challenge, so that it would be ready for launch at the predetermined time in mid-July 2020, and here the team recorded a new achievement in the process of overcoming challenges, as it succeeded in transferring the probe to the Tanegashima station. The Japanese, on a journey that lasted more than 83 hours by land, air and sea, and passed through three main stages, during which tight logistical measures and procedures were taken, to ensure that the probe was delivered to its final destination before launching in an ideal position.

Reschedule the launch

Then came the decisive moment that the team has been eagerly awaiting for six years of diligent work, which is the launch moment, which is set at the first hour of the morning on July 15, 2020 Emirates time, but the series of challenges continued, as it turned out that the weather conditions were not suitable for launching the missile that was launched. The probe will be carried, so that the work team will reschedule the launch date within the “launch window” extending from 15 July and even 3 .سطسNote that the team's failure to complete the launch during this period would have meant postponing the entire mission for two years. After careful studies of weather forecasts in cooperation with the Japanese side, the team decided to launch the Hope Probe on July 20, 2020, at 01:58 am UAE time.

For the first time in the history of space missions for space exploration, the countdown is echoed in Arabic, marking the launch of the Hope Probe, while hundreds of millions of the country, the region and the world followed the historical event, and everyone held their breath waiting for the decisive moments during which the missile will ascend, penetrating the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of 34 kilometers per hour. Pregnant with the Hope probe, and it was only minutes until the success of the launch was confirmed, then the probe separated from the launch missile successfully, and then received the first signal from the probe on its seven-month journey, during which it traveled more than 493 million kilometers. The probe also received the first order from the ground control station in Al Khawaneej in Dubai to open the solar panels, operate the space navigation systems, and launch the reverse thrust systems, thus effectively marking the beginning of the space probe's journey to the Red Planet.

Phases of the probe's journey into space

The first stage of the launch process saw the use of solid-fuel rocket engines, and once the rocket penetrated the atmosphere, the upper cover that protected the "Hope Probe" was removed. In the second stage of the launch process, the first-stage engines were disposed of, and the probe was placed in Earth's orbit, after which the second-stage engines worked to put the probe on its path towards the Red Planet through a precise alignment process with Mars. The speed of the probe at this stage was 11 kilometers per second, or 39600 kilometers per hour.

Then the Hope Probe moved to the second stage of its journey, known as the Early Operations phase, in which a series of pre-prepared commands began operating the Hope Probe. These operations included activating the central computer, operating the thermal control system to prevent fuel freezing, opening the solar panels and using sensors designated to locate the sun, then maneuvering to adjust the position of the probe and directing the panels towards the sun, in order to start charging the batteries on board the probe. Immediately after the end of the previous operations, the “Hope Probe” began to send a series of data, the first signal to reach the planet Earth, and this signal was picked up by the Deep Space Monitoring Network, especially the station located in the Spanish capital, Madrid.

Orientation of the probe path

As soon as the ground station in Dubai received this signal, the work team began conducting a series of checks to ensure the safety of the probe that lasted for 45 days, during which the operations team and the engineering team of the probe examined all the devices to ensure that the systems and devices on board the probe were working efficiently. At this point, the Hope Probe team was able to direct it to be on the best path towards the Red Planet, as the team succeeded in performing the first two maneuvers, the first in 11 .سطسThe second is on August 28, 2020.

After the successful completion of the two route guidance maneuvers, the third stage of the “Probe of Hope” journey began, through a series of regular operations, as the team communicated with the probe through the ground control station two to three times a week, each of which lasts between 6 to 8 hours. . On the eighth of last November, the Hope Probe team successfully completed the third routing maneuver, after which the date of the probe's arrival to Mars orbit will be determined on February 9, 2021 at 7:42 pm UAE time.

During this stage, the working team also operated the scientific devices for the first time in space, checked and adjusted them, by directing them towards the stars to ensure the integrity of their alignment angles, and to ensure that they were ready to work once they reached Mars. At the end of this stage, the “Hope Probe” approached Mars to begin the most important and dangerous stages of its historical mission to explore the Red Planet, which is the stage of entering the orbit of Mars.

The hardest minutes

The stage of entering the orbit of Mars, which took 27 minutes before the probe successfully reached its specified orbit around the red planet, is one of the most difficult and dangerous stages of the mission. This stage is known as “blind minutes”, as it was controlled automatically without any interference from the ground station, as it worked The probe all this time is autonomous.

At this stage, the working team focused on safely inserting the Hope probe into the capture orbit around Mars, and in order to successfully complete this mission, half of the fuel in the probe's tanks was burned to slow it down to the extent that it could be entered into the capture orbit, and the burning process of fuel continued using engines. Reverse thrust (delta V) for 27 minutes to reduce the probe's speed from 121,000 km/h to 18,000 km/h, and due to it being a precise operation, the control commands for this phase were developed through a deep study from the team that identified all the scenarios that could occur in addition to All improvement plans to have orders ready for this critical moment. After the success of this mission, the probe entered its initial elliptical orbit, where the duration of one revolution around the planet reaches 40 hours, and the height of the probe while it is in this orbit will range from 1000 km above the surface of Mars to 49,380 km. The probe will remain in this orbit for several weeks to re-examine and test all sub-instruments on board the probe before moving on to the science phase.

Later, the sixth and final stage, the scientific stage, begins, during which the “Hope probe” will take an elliptical orbit around Mars at an altitude ranging between 20,000 to 43,000 km, and the probe will take 55 hours to complete a full orbit around Mars. The orbit chosen by the Hope Probe team is very innovative and unique, and will allow the Hope probe to provide the scientific community with the first complete picture of the atmosphere and weather of Mars in a year. The number of times the “Hope Probe” will communicate with the ground station will be limited to only twice a week, and the duration of one communication will range between 6 to 8 hours, and this phase extends for two years, during which the probe is planned to collect a large set of scientific data on the Martian atmosphere and its dynamics. This scientific data will be provided to the scientific community through the Scientific Data Center of the Emirates Mars Exploration Project.