The National Space Agency (NSA) said on Sunday that the UAE’s “Hope” Probe sends home first image of the Red Planet after successfully entering the Mars orbit.
The image captured was of the largest volcano in the solar system, the Olympus Mons which is about two and a half times the height of the Mount Everest and has a height over 21 km as measured by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, the UAE’s Prime Minister and Dubai’s ruler shared the image on Twitter and wrote “The first picture of Mars captured by the first-ever Arab probe in history,25,000 km above the Red Planet’s surface”.
The main aim of the mission is to disclose the information of atmosphere and weather in Mars, However, UAE also said that it wants the mission to be served as an inspiration for the region’s youth.
Hope Probe was launched on 19th July 2020 at 9:58 pm along with NASA’S Perseverance rover and it became first of the three spacecrafts to arrive at Mars this month after China’s Tianwen-1. The US also launched Alliance Atlas V rocket in July, and now, all the three are taking advantage of a period when Mars and Earth are the nearest.
The United Arab Space Emergency had first started the mission on 16th July 2014 under the Emirates Mars mission. The operations are held by the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre and the duration of mission is of 210 days and 8 hours.
Hope Probe has a mass of 1350 kg that is 2980 lb including 800 kg of hydrazine fuel and has a structure of honeycomb with composite face sheet made up of aluminium. It is 2.37m in width and 2.90m in length having a power of 1800 watts which is obtained by two solar panels in it.
The design of mission is provided by the Advanced Space which is based in Boulder, Colorado.
Advanced Space developed the events list, maneuvers and trajectories for the accomplishment of the mission.
Hope Probe will orbit Mars for at least 687 days which is equivalent to one Martian year, using the scientific instrument to monitor the atmosphere of the Mars.
Though Mars has been unfriendly to the attempts made by Earth to visit it. Then too, it is expected from Hope Probe to collect different data points and to send data to Earth so that scientists could make use of it for further studies and understand why the Martian atmosphere is deteriorating into space.
