The UAE has made Arab history, as its Hope probe successfully entered Martian orbit on Tuesday, making the country only the fifth ever to have reached Mars—and the second after India to do so successfully on the first attempt.
The UAE Premier Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maltoum, and Crown Prince Zayed Al Nahyan are at the control room of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre, to congratulate the team behind this historic achievement.
Sheikh Al Maktoum tweeted, “"Mission Accomplished.”
Our founding father Zayed’s dream became a reality. Congratulations to our government, our people, and all Arabs, on yet another monumental accomplishment. #ArabsToMars #ImpossibleIsPossible https://t.co/qyqwisGoBi
— MBRU (@MBRUniversity) February 9, 2021
The Mohammed Bin Rashid university congratulated the country, government, people of the UAE and all Arabs for the historic feat.
NASA Associate Administrator Dr Thomas Zurbuchen also congratulated the UAE for its achievement, tweeting, "Congratulations @HopeMarsMission on your safe arrival to Mars’ orbit! Your bold endeavor to explore the Red Planet will inspire many others to reach for the stars. We hope to join you at Mars soon with @NASAPersevere."
Dear @HopeMarsMission, congratulations on arriving at Mars! In the words of the poet Al Mutanabbi:
— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) February 9, 2021
إذا غامَرْتَ في شَرَفٍ مَرُومِ
فَلا تَقنَعْ بما دونَ النّجومِ
(If you ventured in pursuit of glory, don’t be satisfied with less than the stars.) pic.twitter.com/HvSsRHumzr
NASA Perseverence probe also "tweeted" a congratulatory message, quoting an Arab poet, al-Mutanabbi.
Dear @HopeMarsMission, congratulations on arriving at Mars! In the words of the poet Al Mutanabbi:
— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) February 9, 2021
إذا غامَرْتَ في شَرَفٍ مَرُومِ
فَلا تَقنَعْ بما دونَ النّجومِ
(If you ventured in pursuit of glory, don’t be satisfied with less than the stars.) pic.twitter.com/HvSsRHumzr
.
The Hope probe will make the first-ever detailed study of Mars’ atmosphere and will study the planet’s weather cycles. Launched onboard a Japanese rocket, the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H-IIA launcher, the spacecraft contains the Emirates eXploration Imager (a multi-band high-resolution camera), the Emirates Mars Infrared Spectrometer (an interferometric thermal infrared spectrometer), and the Emirates MARs Ultraviolet Spectrometer (EMUS), a far-ultraviolet imaging spectrograph.
The probe "will help answer key questions about the global Martian atmosphere and the loss of hydrogen and oxygen gases into space over the span of one Martian year," the Emirates Mars Mission website states.
The Hope probe is just the first in a line of endeavours to Mars in 2021: China’s Tianwen probe is expected to reach tomorrow, while the US Perseverance lander is expected on February 18. While Tianwen, China’s first Mars mission, will orbit the planet before landing a rover on its surface, Perseverence will do the same while also deploying a specially-designed helicopter to make the first-ever powered flight on another planet. Hope, Tianwen, and Perseverence all made use of the July 2020 launch window.
