UAE to land a probe on an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter

Multimedia

29-05-2023, 19:57

INA - SOURCES

UAE announced that it plans to launch an ambitious mission to the asteroid belt in 2028. That mission will visit seven different space rocks, and even land on one of them, an asteroid called (269) Justitia.

On Sunday; May 28; the nation gave some new information about this bold asteroid mission; including its name, the Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt - EMA.

"We will never cease to look ahead; we will never cease our efforts to develop a brighter future for our young generations," Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoumbin Rashid Al Maktoum, the vice president and prime minister of the UAE and the ruler of Dubai, said in a statement.

The EMA spacecraft will be named after the sheikh. It will be called the MBR Explorer.

The MBR Explorer will visit its first asteroid in 2030, and will follow an orbital path allowing it to pick up speed from several planets along the way. It's common for spacecraft to get such "gravity assists" from worlds like Venus or Mars to save on fuel, and to do side observations to test their instruments.

After passing by six asteroids, the mission aims to touch down upon Justitia in 2034 with a small lander that will deploy from MBR Explorer. Justitia may have organic molecules on its surface; organics are the building blocks of the complex molecules that could form life in the right circumstances.