The first Arab space mission, the UAE's "Hope" probe, is expected to reach Mars' orbit on Tuesday, making it the first of three spacecraft to arrive at the Red Planet this month.

The United Arab Emirates, China and the United States all launched projects to Mars last July, taking advantage of a period when the Earth and Mars are nearest.

If succesful, the wealthy Gulf state will become the fifth nation to ever reach Mars -- a venture timed to mark the 50th anniversary of the unification of the UAE -- with the China mission due to become the sixth the following day.

Landmarks across the UAE have been lit up in red at night, government accounts emblazoned with the #ArabstoMars hashtag, and on the big day Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest tower, will be at the centre of a celebratory show.

"Hope", known as "Al-Amal" in Arabic, will orbit the planet for at least one Martian year, or 687 days, while the Tianwen-1 from China and the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover from the US will both land on Mars' surface.

Only the US, India, the former Soviet Union and the European Space Agency have successfully reached the Red Planet in the past.

- Risky manoeuvre -

After blasting off from Japan last July, the Hope mission now faces its "most critical and complex" manoeuvre, according to Emirati officials, with a 50-50 chance of successfully entering a Mars orbit.

The spacecraft must slow significantly to be captured by Martian gravity, rotating and firing all six of its Delta-V thrusters for 27 minutes to reduce its cruising speed of 121,000 kilometres (about 75,000 miles) per hour to about 18,000 kph.

The process, which will consume half of its fuel, will begin on Tuesday at 1530 GMT and it will take 11 minutes for a signal on its progress to reach ground control.

Omran Sharaf, the UAE mission's project manager, said it was a "huge honour" to be the first of this year's missions to reach Mars.

"It is humbling to be in such auspicious and skilled company as we all embark on our missions," he said. "It was never a race for us. We approach space as a collaborative and inclusive effort."

While the Hope probe is designed to provide a comprehensive image of the planet's weather dynamics, it is also a step toward a much more ambitious goal -- building a human settlement on Mars within 100 years.

While cementing its status as a key regional player, the UAE also wants the project to serve as a source of inspiration for Arab youth, in a region too often wracked by sectarian conflicts and economic crises.

Hope will use three scientific instruments to monitor the Martian atmosphere, and is expected to begin transmitting information back to Earth in September 2021, with the data available for scientists around the world to study.

- Close behind -

China's Tianwen-1, or "Questions to Heaven", has already sent back its first image of Mars -- a black-and-white photo that showed geological features including the Schiaparelli crater and the Valles Marineris, a vast stretch of canyons on the Martian surface.

The five-tonne Tianwen-1 includes a Mars orbiter, a lander and a solar-powered rover that will for three months study the planet's soil and atmosphere, take photos, chart maps and look for signs of past life.

China hopes to land the 240-kilogramme rover in May in Utopia, a massive impact basin on Mars. Its orbiter will last for a Martian year.

Tianwen-1 is not China's first attempt to reach Mars. A previous mission with Russia in 2011 ended prematurely when the launch failed.

NASA's Perseverance, which is set to touch down on the Red Planet on February 18, will become the fifth rover to complete the voyage since 1997 -- and all so far have been American.

It is on an astrobiology mission to look for signs of ancient microbial life and will attempt to fly a 1.8 kilogramme helicopter-drone on another world for the first time.

Perseverance, capable of autonomously navigating 200 meters (650 feet) per day, will collect rock samples that could provide invaluable clues about whether there was ever past life on Mars.

About the size of a small SUV, it weighs a metric tonne, has 19 cameras and two microphones -- which scientists hope will be the first to record sound on Mars.

The mission is set to last at least two years.

Emirati 'Hope' probe approaches Mars
Dubai (AFP) Feb 7, 2021 - The first Arab interplanetary mission is expected to reach Mars' orbit Tuesday in what is considered the most critical part of the journey to unravel the secrets of weather on the Red Planet.

The unmanned probe -- named "Al-Amal", Arabic for "Hope" -- blasted off from Japan last year, marking the next step in the United Arab Emirates' ambitious space programme.

Here are some facts and figures about the oil-rich nation's project, which draws inspiration from the Middle East's golden age of cultural and scientific achievements.

- Outsize plans -

The UAE, made up of seven emirates including Dubai and Abu Dhabi, has 12 satellites in orbit, with plans to launch several more in coming years.

In September 2019 it sent the first Emirati into space, Hazza al-Mansouri, who was part of a three-member crew. They blasted off from Kazakhstan, returning home after an eight-day mission in which he became the first Arab to visit the International Space Station.

But the UAE's ambitions go much further, with a goal of building a human settlement on Mars by 2117.

In the meantime, it plans to create a white-domed "Science City" in the deserts outside Dubai to simulate Martian conditions and develop the technology needed to colonise the planet.

The UAE has plans to launch an unmanned rover to the moon by 2024 and is also eyeing future mining projects beyond Earth, as well as space tourism.

It has signed a memorandum of understanding with Richard Branson's space tourism company Virgin Galactic and announced the creation of a "space court" to settle commercial disputes relating to space industries.

- Hope's journey -

The "Hope" probe lifted off from Japan's Tanegashima Space Center on July 20 last year.

The 1,350-kilogramme (2,970-pound) probe -- about the size of an SUV -- took seven months to travel the 493 million kilometres (307 million miles) to Mars.

Officials say that the "most critical and complex" manoeuvre will begin on Tuesday at 1530 GMT, to slow the spacecraft enough to be captured by the gravity of the Red Planet.

The probe will for the first time fire all six of its Delta-V thrusters, for a duration of 27 minutes, to slow its cruising speed of 121,000 kilometres per hour to about 18,000 kph.

The process will consume half of the spacecraft's fuel, and it will take 11 minutes for a signal on its progress to reach Earth.

If successful, one loop around the planet will take 40 hours.

The "Hope" probe will remain in this phase for approximately two months, during which further testing will take place, until it is ready to enter the "science" orbit -- when its data collection work begins.

- Study and inspire -

Unlike the other two Mars ventures this year, the Tianwen-1 from China and Mars 2020 from the United States, the UAE's probe will not land on the Red Planet.

Three instruments mounted on the "Hope" probe will provide a picture of the Mars atmosphere throughout the Martian year -- 687 days.

The first is an infrared spectrometer to measure the lower atmosphere and analyse the temperature structure.

The second is a high-resolution imager that will also provide information about ozone levels. And the third, an ultraviolet spectrometer, is to measure oxygen and hydrogen levels from a distance of up to 43,000 kilometres from the surface.

Studying the atmospheres of other planets will allow for a better understanding of the Earth's climate, officials say, and pave the way for scientific breakthroughs.

But the project is also designed to inspire a region too often beset by turmoil, and recall its heyday of scientific advances during the Middle Ages.

"The UAE wanted to send a strong message to the Arab youth and to remind them of the past, that we used to be generators of knowledge," Omran Sharaf, the mission's project manager, told AFP.

The mission, if successful, would make the UAE the fifth nation to ever reach Mars, and is timed to mark the 50th anniversary of the country's unification.

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Tianwen 1 probe set to enter Mars orbit before New Year
Beijing (XNA) Feb 04, 2021
China's Tianwen 1 Mars probe is set to enter the orbit of the red planet around Feb 10, two days before Chinese New Year, according to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, the nation's leading space contractor. The State-owned conglomerate said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon that the spacecraft will conduct a "braking" operation to decelerate and make sure it will be captured by Martian gravity. Tianwen 1 has flown for 196 days and has traveled more than 450 million kilometers ... read more

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