The United Arab Emirates are preparing for their meeting with Mars

The United Arab Emirates expects to start in just over a month a long 493 million km journey to enter the history of the space conquest. They specified, Monday, June 8, the details of Mars Hope, the first interplanetary mission of the Arab world, whose takeoff is scheduled for July 14.

The probe, entirely "made in UAE" (for United Arab Emirates), must be launched from the small Japanese island of Tanegashima for a trip that should allow it to enter the orbit of Mars in February 2021, said the Emirates News Agency. It will then observe the red planet during a Martian year, that is to say 687 days.

A history of water

On board, the spacecraft will carry three sensors allowing it to study the dynamics of the Martian atmosphere in order to better understand its climate. From a scientific point of view, it will be unprecedented for a planet that has been regularly visited by probes from the earth since the second half of the 20th century. "A large number of missions have been interested in the geology of Mars or in certain elements of its atmosphere, but it will be the most complete mapping ever made of the climate of this planet," recognizes Ian Blatchford, director of the Science museum in London, interviewed by the BBC.

This work is also likely to attract the attention of climatologists interested in the future of our planet. One of the objectives of the UAE mission is to understand how and why oxygen and hydrogen - two essential elements for the formation of water - disappeared from Mars. The red planet had, in fact, similar characteristics to the Earth with, probably, rivers, oceans and a more lenient atmosphere several billion years ago. Understanding where Martian water went remains one of the great mysteries, and unraveling it could provide clues to the factors contributing to dry up a planet.

It is not surprising that a country located in an area of ​​the globe where access to increasingly scarce water is a major economic and geopolitical issue, has set its sights on this aspect of Martian exploration. "For us, water is the source of life, and it is worrying to say the least that there is a planet in our solar system which, when the climate started to change, lost all trace of it", said Sarah al-Amiri, deputy project manager of the Emirates Mars program, when interviewed by the Wired website.

More space, less oil

But Mars Hope is not just about water. The mission is only "a means to an end which is the future of the country and our survival," assured Omran Sharif, project manager of this program. Behind this assertion with a touch of drama hides the Emirati ambition to make the race for the stars one of the main tools for diversifying the economy in order to make it less dependent on oil.

In the region, the country is one of the first to have entered the space sector. Mars Hope is the culmination of a program initiated in 2014 with the creation of the national space agency. Other oil monarchies followed, but later, like Saudi Arabia, which did not create its own space agency until 2018. 

The space has already cost the United Arab Emirates $ 5.4 billion. In return, they were able to launch their first entirely manufactured satellite on the national territory in 2018, and the following year an Emirati astronaut set foot on the International Space Station. Achievements that "are notable for a country that has only existed for fifty years and had only a rudimentary culture in space engineering a few years ago," notes The Guardian.

Sarah al-Amiri, also Minister of Advanced Sciences and President of the Council of Scientists, hopes that these successes will give birth to vocations. "Today, our economy is based on services, logistics, oil and gas, but if we look to the future, we realize that the sectors that require technological know-how [such as aerospace, editor's note] are becoming more and more important, "she explains to the Arab News site. In other words, the UAE authorities want young people interested in the engineering profession to dream of going to Mars from the Emirates rather than immigrate to the United States or Europe.

The increasingly populated space

It is also a way to buy social peace, suggests the scientist. "In our region, a majority of the population is under the age of 35, and if you cannot channel all of this energy properly, it can lead to conflict," she told Wired.

In addition, "since the Cold War, the conquest of space has always had a geopolitical aspect, and this is also the case with this mission," said Ahmad Bani Younes, director of the space research laboratory at the University of San Diego California, interviewed by Wired. There are, in fact, more and more actors who want to break the triumvirate of historic space powers (United States, Europe, Russia). China, India, Indonesia and even South Africa have demonstrated, with their space programs, that they can deserve a place at the table of the great.

In the Arab world, the UAE hopes to remain at the forefront of this increasingly competitive sector. But other countries, such as Lebanon, Egypt and especially Saudi Arabia intend to challenge their regional leadership. Thus, Riyadh has endowed its space agency with a budget of one billion dollars.

The successful launch of the Mars probe, scheduled for July 14, could allow the United Arab Emirates to stay one step ahead of its regional competitors. But it is far from being won. The Covid-19 pandemic has made the job of UAE scientists much more difficult. They, for example, had to be placed in preventive quarantine upon arrival in Japan, and new sanitary procedures to reduce the risk of contamination have slowed preparations. For now, the UAE space agency ensures that the calendar can be kept. If they succeed, they will then have to tackle their other bet: to install a colony on Mars in 2117.

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