Hope probe .. 215 million km towards Mars in 79 days

The Hope Probe, the first Arab and Islamic mission to explore Mars, continued its successful historical journey to the Red Planet. The distance traveled since its launch about 79 days ago reached about 215 million 525 thousand and 997 kilometers.

Officials of the Emirates Mars Exploration Project, the Hope Probe, revealed that the total distance remaining until the arrival of the Probe of Hope to the orbit of the Red Planet in February 2021 is approximately 264 million 966 thousand and 403 kilometers.

The director of the UAE project to explore Mars, "The Probe of Hope," Eng. Omran Sharaf confirmed that after more than two months of the historic journey, the Hope probe has successfully traveled a great distance to the Red Planet.

He revealed that the launch stages and the first operations have been successfully completed, indicating that there are 6 stages in the mission of the Al-Amal probe, which is the launch stage, which began upon the completion of the final preparation of the spacecraft and the procedures for reducing the thrust of the vehicle and ended after the completion of the initial contact with the probe.

He stated that the second phase started at the end of the launch phase and lasted for 45 days and ended after evaluating the performance of the probe devices in space, as there was continuous communication for 24 hours with the probe from the ground station.

He explained that the current third stage is the "flight to Mars" stage, in which the usual operations to follow the probe begin and extend until it enters the Mars field, and in which contact with the probe is made from 2 to 3 times a week.

He added that the fourth stage is the stage of entering the orbit of Mars, which begins after the stage of the flight in space and ends when the navigation team makes sure that the probe has entered the orbit of capture.

He mentioned that the fifth stage is the stage of "moving to the scientific orbit", which begins after the probe enters its orbit around Mars, and includes several maneuvers to move to the last orbit.

He explained that the sixth and final stage is the "scientific orbit" and the probe will continue for a full Martian year, "687 Earth days", through which the planned scientific data is captured.

Eng. Omran Sharaf reviewed the work teams of the Emirates Mars Exploration Project ... indicating that they include the earth station team, control operations, the launch team, the strategic planning team, the scientific team, the probe development team, the project management team, the quality assurance team and the operations team.

For his part, Deputy Project Manager for the affairs of the probe, Eng. Suhail Al-Dhafri, said that the Al-Amal probe in its orbit and the scientific equipment is in excellent condition, indicating that the safety of the probe and its various devices such as navigational and electrical systems is being checked continuously.

The Deputy Project Manager for the operations of the probe, Eng. Zakaria Al Shamsi, reviewed the role of the teams of the Emirates Mars Exploration Project, "The Hope Probe", stressing that all these roles are complementary towards achieving one goal, which is the success of the Hope Probe in its historic mission to the Red Planet.

He referred to the current stage of the "Hope Probe", which is contacted twice a week and may reach three times, reaching the next stage, which is the stage of entering the Mars orbit and then the stage of transition to the scientific orbit.

The Emirates Mars Exploration Project constitutes an inspiring success story in which an elite of young national cadres took the lead in this pioneering historical project that delineates the first Arab and Islamic mission to the Red Planet.

The Emirates News Agency "WAM" is reviewing stations in the march of the Hope Probe, which is scheduled to reach its orbit around the Red Planet by February of 2021.

Despite the "Covid-19" pandemic, the Al-Amal probe team showed amazing efficiency in adapting to the new situation and restructuring its operational plans at high speed, which culminated in the successful launch of the Hope probe on the morning of July 20, 2020 at 1:58 minutes within the pre-set launch window for the probe.

The design and construction team of the probe within the Emirates Mars Exploration Project, which includes 200 Emirati cadres qualified in the fields of engineering, technology and space sciences, has succeeded in accelerating the completion of the construction of the Hope probe within only six years. It began in 2015 in a project that normally takes more than a decade and within the framework of a budget. It is the least expensive of its kind compared to its global counterpart.

Citizens' cadres follow the journey of the Al-Amal probe through the ground control station in Al-Khawaneej in Dubai at the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center, which supervises various control and communication processes with the Al-Amal probe since its launch from Tanegashima, Japan, and the engineers of the ground control station receive signals, messages, data and scientific information from the probe.

The UAE mission to explore Mars saw the creation of 200 new technologies while working on the Hope Probe, preparing 51 scientific research papers and designing and building 66 pieces of the probe inside the UAE.

The data collected by the Hope Probe around the clock during a full Martian year, approximately two years on Earth, will provide an unprecedented wealth of knowledge that the UAE places within the reach of more than 200 academic and research institutions around the world to draw a clear picture of the climate of the Red Planet, its daily weather, its topography, the temperature variation on its surface and its weather phenomena. .

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