The United Arab Emirates (UAE) just conducted its first space mission to Mars last Monday, known as the Emirates Mars Mission. The launch was made at the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan, precisely at 6:58 A.M. local time (US EST Sunday evening). If this mission becomes a success and it safely reaches Mars, then the country will be one of the very few nations that will have been to the Red Planet.
The UAE launched Hope, which is an orbital spacecraft designed to study the weather and atmosphere on Mars. The mission is concerned with the scientific exploration of various conditions of the planet.
The lower atmosphere of the planet is still largely unexplored and unknown. The rovers that have so far been sent are not capable of studying it, and other previous orbiting spacecraft were not optimized to observe the lower atmospheric layers.
Spacecraft Hope is equipped with a multi-band camera that will conduct scans of the atmosphere encompassing the ultraviolet and visible wavelengths. It also has two spectrometers, an ultraviolet and an infrared one.
The equipment will assess various parameters in Mars' lower atmosphere, such as the water content, chemical composition, temperature, how much oxygen and hydrogen are being dispersed into space, and how much airborne dust is present.
The information gathering to be conducted by the spacecraft is also meant to be used in preparation for manned missions, or missions which include humans. It is of great interest to find out the information that Hope can convey regarding dust storms that occur on Mars' surface. Such dust storms usually grow to significant weather events that go on for several weeks at a time. They blanket the entire surface of Mars and cut off all communication with everything that is stationed on the planet's surface.
Such a disruption of communication occurred in 2018, which finally led NASA to give up on its Opportunity rover. Opportunity fell silent when a dust storm hit and failed to reestablish communication even after 800 attempts by NASA to communicate with it. The rover has been on Mars for 15 years.
Thus, any future crewed missions to Mars should be completely ready for the possibility that dust storms will occur. These storms must be planned for, and all contingencies and possible scenarios should be considered. We have to know how they form, what their behavior is, and how to anticipate and avoid the dangers they pose.
This mission by the UAE is considered an international effort. It is managed by the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center in Dubai. Hope costs $200 million and was constructed with partners from Arizona State University, University of California Berkeley, and the University of Colorado Boulder. The UAE also worked with Japan for a safe launch of Hope onboard Japanese rockets.
The data collected by Hope will be available for free to over 200 research institutions all over the world. The spacecraft is set to arrive on Mars in February 2021, then be in orbit for a minimum of two years. The mission may be extended for two more years to 2025.