Hope mission: UAE spacecraft hits brakes at high speed to enter Mars orbit

Image source, MBRSC

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is celebrating the success of its first mission at Mars.

It has put a probe called Hope in orbit around the red planet.

The Hope spacecraft - launched from Earth seven months ago - was travelling at 120,000km/h (75,000mph) and had to fire it's breaking engines for 27 minutes to be captured by Mars' gravity.

The probe will now send back data about the Martian atmosphere, studying daily and seasonal changes.

'Most critical and dangerous part of the journey'

Image source, MBRSC

Image caption, It's seven months since Hope left Earth

Project director, Omran Sharaf described the the breaking manoeuvre as the "most critical and dangerous part of our journey to Mars, exposing the Hope probe to stresses and pressures it has never before faced."

"With this enormous milestone achieved, we are now preparing to commence science data gathering," he said.

Mission control at the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC) in Dubai monitored Hope as it moved into orbit around Mars, but as there are no astronauts on board, there was nothing anyone could have done to sort things out if something had gone wrong.

Also Mars and Earth are currently separated by 190 million km, meaning it takes any signal 11 minutes to travel between Earth and the probe.

The manoeuvre, performed by six thrusters on the craft happened at about 3:30 PM, UK time - with signals travelling to mission control through Nasa's Deep Space Network of radio dishes.

Hope will now travel around Mars, at its closest point it'll just be 1000 km (621 miles) above the planet's surface, at it's furthest it'll be 50,000 km (31,068 miles).

Amazing images

Image source, MBRSC

Image caption, Here is Hope in the cleanroom, before it was launched.

Hope will regularly provide spectacular, high-resolution images of the whole of Mars.

"Any image we got of Mars would be iconic but I just can't imagine what it's going to feel like to get that first full-disk image of Mars, once we're in orbit," said Sarah Al Amiri, the Emirati minister of state for advanced technology and chair of the UAE Space Agency.

"And for me also, it's getting that science data down and having our science team start analysing it and finding artefacts that haven't been discovered before." She added.

According to the minister, the Mars mission has cost $200 million, after plans to launch a National Space Programme were first announced in 2014.

In 2020, Hazza al-Mansouri became the first Emirati in space, when he flew to the International Space Station and the UAE say they hope to create a base on Mars by 2117.

Image source, MBRSC

Image caption, Mission controllers will be monitoring closely the performance of Hope's thrusters

The past few days seen lots of enthusiasm for Hope and its mission in the UAE, with public monuments, buildings all lit up in red.

Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, had been flashing a countdown to Tuesday's big moment.

Hope is regarded as a huge success for the small gulf nation which now becomes only the fifth country to send a probe in orbit around Mars.

"On arriving at Mars. I'm now truly looking forward to the scientific discoveries. And I truly hope this mission will impact an entire generation to strive to do things that are even bigger," said Sarah Al Amiri.

Image source, UAE Space Agency

Image caption, Illuminations on the Burj Khalifa had been counting down to the moment Hope went into orbit around Mars

Hope is not the only craft that will be reaching Mars this month.

The Chinese Tianwen-1 orbiter will also try to make it into orbit on 10 February, and on 18 February a rover sent by the US will hopefully arrive too.