The Emirates Project for Exploring Mars stated that the “Probe of Hope” to Mars will settle 1374 Earth days throughout its orbit on the “Red Planet”, with a total of about “two Martian years”, which equals four Earth years, during which it accomplishes more than six precise scientific tasks assigned to it, most notably "To develop a deeper understanding about the climate changes on the surface of Mars, to create the first global picture of how the atmosphere of Mars changed during the day and between seasons, in addition to revealing the reasons for the erosion of the surface of Mars, and to search for links between today's weather and the old climate of the Red Planet."
The probe seeks to achieve three strategic goals, which include: "improving the quality of life on the ground, raising the level of national cadres and competencies in the field of space exploration, building scientific knowledge of the future economy, and encouraging international cooperation in exploring Mars, to answer the questions addressed by previous tasks."
In detail, the Emirati "Probe of Hope" set out for Mars on a journey that extends to about seven months, during which it travels a distance of 493.5 million km, and at a speed exceeding 34 thousand km / h, To settle into orbit on the Red Planet in February 2021, coinciding with the country’s celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the proclamation of the Emirates Federation in 1971.
The "Probe of Hope" passes through four stages, from its launch until the end of its specific missions, the first of which is the space journey that extends from its launch until the beginning of 2021, then the stage of reaching its orbit on Mars, expected in next February, to begin after the third stage, which is to start its missions The science, which will continue for two years, is followed by the last stages of the probe's schedule, devoted to so-called "extended scientific processes", which will continue until 2024.
The project indicated that the mission of the "Probe of Hope" on the Red Planet has a specific time period of up to two Martian years, equivalent to four Earth years.
Regarding the most prominent reasons that motivated the exploration of Mars, the project mentioned that the Red Planet has dominated the imagination of humans for many centuries, until a lot has been known about it, and it has the vision and technology to explore more about it, pointing out that it has become self-evident to explore Mars, for several reasons. From the constant endeavor to know whether there is life outside Earth, to the expansion of human civilization to other planets one day, in addition to the possibility of using Mars to improve the life of the human race in the future.
The project indicated that the Mars Exploration Group advisory group sets scientific and research goals that must be studied in order to enhance human knowledge of the Red Planet.
He stressed that the group set four strategic goals for its work, including determining whether Mars has witnessed life before, or can still do so, understanding the nature of weather and knowing the history of climate on Mars, understanding the origin and development of Mars as a geological system, and preparing to explore it with manned trips, Pointing out that each of these main goals is divided into a group of sub-goals that in turn branch into one or more sub-goals, in proportion to the recommended research.
And «Probe of Hope» is concerned with understanding the nature of the weather, and knowing the history of climate on Mars, and this falls under the sub-goal that aims to “describe the state of the climate on Mars and the processes that control it in light of the current orbital formation of the planet”, by studying the two upper layers. And lower than Mars’s atmosphere simultaneously.
The probe aims to achieve three main strategic goals: the first is to improve the quality of life on Earth by discovering Mars, as the planet most similar to Earth, and the second, to raise the level of national cadres and competencies in the field of space exploration and building scientific knowledge of the future economy, while the latter, encouraging international cooperation by exploring it Mars, to answer questions that are addressed in previous missions.
During the mission period, the "Probe of Hope" performs six delicate scientific missions, which include forming a deeper understanding about climate changes on the surface of Mars, mapping out the nature of its current weather by studying the lower layer of its atmosphere, and observing weather phenomena, such as (dust storms and changes in Temperature), and studying the effect of climate changes on the formation of the escape of oxygen and hydrogen gases from its atmosphere, by studying the relationship between the lower and upper atmosphere.
The list of six tasks also included the creation of the first global picture of how the atmosphere of Mars changed during the day and between seasons, revealing the reasons for the erosion of the Martian surface, and searching for links between today's weather and the ancient climate of the Red Planet. Completing these tasks would help to know whether there is a possibility of life on Mars, what the future of the planet Earth is, and how life can be preserved there.
And he carries a "scientific probe" on board with three scientific devices, to monitor the main components of the atmosphere of Mars, the first of which is the digital exploration camera, which is a multi-wavelength radio camera, capable of capturing visible images of Mars with a accuracy of 12 megapixels. It also has the ability to detect the distribution of water and ozone ice in the lower layer of Mars' atmosphere using ultraviolet beams.
The second is an infrared spectroscopy to measure the optical depth of dust, ice, and water vapor in the atmosphere. It also measures the surface temperature, and the temperature in the lower atmosphere.
The third is an ultraviolet spectrophotometer, which studies the upper layer of the atmosphere of Mars, through long-range ultraviolet beams. It is able to determine the distribution of carbon monoxide and oxygen in the red planet's thermosphere, and it also measures the amount of hydrogen and oxygen in the outer shell of Mars.
The first "Mars" satellite
The “Hope Probe” is the first of its kind in relation to monitoring climate changes on Mars, where it fully studies the weather system on the Red Planet, by monitoring climate changes in the atmosphere, in the lower atmosphere, for the first time in the atmosphere. Different seasons and seasons. In sync with this, the probe will monitor the diffusion of hydrogen and oxygen gases in the upper layer of the atmosphere of Mars, and the “probe of hope” will focus on revealing the relationship between the climate changes in the galvanic layer of the galvanic layer of the lower layer.
This is the first time that humans have been able to study the relationship between climate changes and the loss of the atmosphere of the Red Planet, a process that may have been responsible for the transformation of Mars, over billions of years, from the planet C On the surface, to this arid and cold planet that has a thin atmosphere.
Martian weather "gap"
The surface images of Mars indicate evidence that it was wetter and warmer than it is today, and climate change and climate loss are among the most important reasons for its transformation into a dusty and dusty planet.
As scientists around the world continue to study the evolution of the Martian planet, the Emirates Exploration Project for Mars comes as a priority to provide scientific data, which would fill the knowledge gap in our understanding of the environment of nature.
Entering the orbit of Mars
The "Probe of Hope" will enter the orbit of the capture around Mars, by itself, and the Emirates Mars Project team will not be able to deal with it because of the delay of the radio signals from it, which will take between 13 and 26 minutes to reach Earth.
Once the process of entering the Mars orbit is complete, the probe will be obscured by Mars. When it exits from the dark side of the Red Planet, it will be reconnected, at which time the team can confirm the success of the maneuvering entry into the orbit of the capture around Mars. This stage begins with the maneuvers of the transition from the capture orbit to the scientific orbit. Appropriate, so that the probe can perform its basic scientific tasks.
During the rotation of the probe around Mars, the orbit will take an oval shape, and the duration of one session around the planet in it will reach 40 hours, in which the probe will be at an altitude of 1000 km above the surface of Mars, 49.380 km away from it.
As the probe begins to approach its intended destination, it will first enter a broad, elliptical orbit, and then move to a scientific orbit closer to the planet, and its speed will range between 3600 and 14.400 km / h , And reaches its maximum when its elliptical orbit places it closer to the Red Planet, where it will have to operate its probes, to collect data.
At the beginning of the approach to Mars stage, operations at the earth station and communication with the "Probe of Hope" will be reduced to a minimum, so the team’s focus will shift to inserting the probe into a capture orbit around Mars safely, and its speed will be slowed down to the extent that it can be entered into the orbit of the capture.
- the completion of the tasks «probe hope» helps in determining the future of the planet, and how to keep life in it.