UAE: First Arab spaceship set to blast to Mars in seven years

10 years ago | Posted in: science | 594 Views

Having scaled the heights of Earth with the world’s tallest tower, the United Arab Emirates is now aiming for the stars with an ambitions trip to Mars. The UAE said that its unmanned probe will take nine months to travel more than 37 million miles to Mars, making the emirates one of only nine countries with space programs to try and explore the red planet. A UAE Cabinet statement said the project aims to advance human knowledge and develop Emirati human capital and economy, but did not list specific scientific goals for the probe.

The energy-rich country on the eastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula announced plans Wednesday to send the first unmanned Arab spaceship to Mars in 2021. The ruler of the UAE’s emirate of Dubai, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, said the mission will prove the Arab world is still capable of delivering scientific contributions to humanity, despite the many conflicts across the Middle East.

“Our region is a region of civilization. Our destiny is, once again, to explore, to create, to build and to civilize,” said Al Maktoum, who is also UAE’s vice president, in a statement.
For years, the UAE has been pushing Arab League nations to create a pan-Arab space agency similar to the European Space Agency.

The government did not say how much the program is expected to cost, but said the space agency would report to the Cabinet and be financially and administratively independent otherwise.
The journey is complicated and many missions to Mars have failed.
Countries first trying to launch into space usually fail more often than they succeed and that’s just getting into Earth’s orbit. Getting to Mars is the hardest job for even veteran space countries.

Russia — the first country to go to space — failed frequently with landers, got one ship to land but only got 20 seconds of data… see more

source: dailymail UK

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