The United Arab Emirates' historic Mars launch has been again delayed due to unsatisfactory weather conditions at the site of the launch.
It's the UAE's first-ever interplanetary mission, which will commence with the launch of a Mars orbiter called Hope. However, the launch site of the Mission, the Tanegashima Space Center, has been unfortunately struggling with bad weather conditions through the launch window, which started on July 14. The Hope Mars orbiter will launch on a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H-IIA rocket to begin its trip to the Red Planet.
According to the UAE Space Agency, it will attempt to launch the orbiter between July 19 and July 21. The H-IIA rocket on which the spacecraft is launching requires peak winds below 70 feet per second (21 meters per second), with very little rainfall, and no cumulonimbus clouds, atmospheric discharge or lightning along the flight path. More dramatic weather could send a rocket off course or make it a target for lightning strikes.
The Hope personnel and its collaborator, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, are continuing to monitor the weather at the launch site and should announce a new launch date within the preferred window.
UAE's Mars orbiter, which is worth $200 million, will embark on a seven-month journey to MARS, slipping into its orbit by early 2021. Hope is scheduled to make observations on the Martian surface for two Earth years, approximately a full Martian year.
Should the orbiter reach Mars, it will make the UAE the fifth or sixth entity to orbit the Red Planet, depending on how the mission fares with that of the Tianwen-1 Mars lander from China, which is also set to launch this summer.
If UAE wants to make it to Mars this year, however, the Hope launch needs to happen by Aug. 3. If the weather remains uncooperative, though, the mission will have to wait 26 months before the trajectories of Earth and Mars are again favorable for a launch.
Ironically given the cause of the delays, the Hope mission's job is to study weather and atmosphere on the Red Planet, offering scientists their first global view of how the weather on Mars changes over the daily and seasonal cycle.
Hope is one of the three heading for Mars in the next few weeks, which is the time the orbital alignment of the Earth and the Red Planet is ideal. NASA's Perseverance rover is scheduled to launch on July 30, and the mentioned Tianwen-1 on July 23.
