Space · a Light

An Arab probe reached Mars orbit in February 2021

On 9 February 2021 the Emirates Mars Mission, called Hope, fired its engines for twenty seven minutes and entered orbit around Mars. It was the first interplanetary mission by an Arab country, and only about half of all Mars missions to that point had succeeded. The spacecraft was built in six years by a team whose average age was in the early thirties, working with the University of Colorado, and the science lead was Sarah al-Amiri. Its orbit was chosen to see the whole planet at all times of day, which no earlier mission had done, and it studies how the Martian atmosphere is escaping into space. Its data is released publicly to anyone who asks for it.

Emirates Mars Mission · 9 February 2021