The United Arab Emirates is planning to join the ranks of only a select few of elite space-faring nations around the globe this summer by launching its first interplanetary mission to the Red Planet, but what had been a planned liftoff this week has once again been put on hold.
The UAE postponed the launch on Wednesday after storm clouds were spotted at the launch site in Japan. The mission has now been put on hold until later this month, with the launch window extended to August 3.
Its Hope probe was originally expected to be launched Wednesday from Japan's Tanegashima Space Centre until the storm clouds were spotted.
Called the Emirates Mars Mission, the program was expected to kick off a hectic summer of Mars missions. China also plans to send its own orbiter, rover, and lander to Mars on July 23.
The Emirati project – which marks the Arab world's first interplanetary mission – is one of three racing to the planet, including China's Tianwen-1 and the US' Mars 2020, taking advantage of the period when the Mars and the Earth are nearest to each other: around 55 million kilometers (34 million miles).
Hope, which is the size of an average SUV, will spend seven months cruising to Mars's orbit. It takes that long, at the minimum, for a space vehicle to loop out beyond Earth's orbit and sync up with Mars' more distant orbit around the sun.
One of Hope's main objectives will be to chart a global map of Mars' climate across an entire Martian year. That would be humanity's first such image of the planet's atmosphere.
In a webinar about the upcoming mission, program leaders disclosed that they took on the Mars challenge precisely because it is difficult. "It is a big enough challenge, but one that can be attained," Jeff Foust of Space News quoted Sarah al-Amiri, UAE minister of state for advanced sciences and Hope deputy project manager.
The UAE started its satellite programs in the mid-2000s as part of efforts to diversify the nation's economy and make it less reliant on the energy industry.
In a message posted on Twitter by the UAE Prime Minister's Office, Mohammad Al-Gergawi, minister for cabinet affairs, said the cost of the Hope Mars Mission has reached $200 million, which is considered one of the lowest in the world compared with similar programs.
When it does finally launch, the UAE's Hope probe will reach Mars by February 2021 and study the planet from above for two years.
