The United Arab Emirates wants to send Hope to Mars in 2020.
Hope is a probe designed to study the red planet's atmosphere, and the UAE’s young space program has revealed big ambitions to put it in orbit around Mars by 2021.
The country announced their plans to mount a Mars mission last year; since then, mission controllers have been putting together a plan.
“Our science mission is to produce the first-ever truly global picture of the Martian atmosphere," Omran Sharaf, the Emirates Mars Mission Project Manager, said in a video.
“This is the first holistic study of the Martian climate, and how the layers of its atmosphere fit together.”
UAE scientists hope that this map will help us understand how Earth’s atmosphere might evolve over time. Research has shown that Mars was once a wet world like Earth, so learning more about how its atmosphere has evolved could give researchers insights into the future of Earth’s atmosphere.
It’s also possible that this mission could help scientists analyze the atmospheres of alien planets in the future by comparing them to Mars’ thin atmosphere, Sarah Amiri, the deputy project manager and science lead on the mission said in the video.
The probe's name was announced in a post on Google+ by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the vice president and prime minister of the UAE.
"After thousands of suggestions for the name of #Mars probe, we decided to name the probe 'Hope' as it sends a message of optimism to millions of young Arabs," Sheikh Mohammed wrote. "Arab civilisation once played a great role in contributing to human knowledge, and will play that role again. #EmiratesMarsMission proves that nothing is impossible, that #Arabs can compete with the greatest of nations in the race for knowledge."
If the UAE succeeds in its mission, it will become the fourth space agency to put a probe into orbit around Mars. NASA, the European Space Agency, India’s space program and the Soviet space program have all sent probes to the Red Planet thus far.
The UAE’s Mars program is a homegrown operation. The space agency — called the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center — developed its own technology for the mission.
Instead of buying tech from other, more experience Mars-faring space agencies, the UAE developed its Hope orbiter from scratch.
“We decided to do it ourselves, to build it ourselves and to learn with our partners along the way,” Amiri said. “This mission is managed by a 100% Emirati team.”
UAE scientists will also share their data with about 200 universities and organizations around the world, once the probe reaches orbit.
The UAE is getting some support for the mission from some American universities as well. The University of Colorado, Boulder — part of the team that sent NASA’s Maven mission to Mars — will lead a team of universities to help with the UAE's science goals.