The highly anticipated launch of the UAE’s Hope Probe to Mars has been postponed due to inclement weather at the Tanegashima Space Center., it was announced on Tuesday.
In a tweet, the UAE government said that “The UAE Space Agency and the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre, in collaboration with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, have announced a delay of the Emirates Mars Mission’s Hope Probe launch due to the weather conditions at the launch site of Tanegashima Island in Japan.”
The Emirati project is one of three racing to Mars, including Tianwen-1 from China and Mars 2020 from the United States, taking advantage of the period when the Earth and Mars are nearest: some 55 million kilometres (34 million miles) apart.
The UAE is set to be the first Arab nation to send a probe to Mars.
“Hope” – or Al-Amal in Arabic – is expected to reach Mars’s orbit by February 2021, marking the 50th anniversary of the unification of the UAE.
Once there, it will loop the planet for a whole Martian year – 687 days.
The objective of the UAE Mars mission is to provide a comprehensive image of the weather dynamics in the Red Planet’s atmosphere and pave the way for scientific breakthroughs.
