A virtual seminar organized by "Emirates Space" with the participation of "Saudi Space"

"Probe of Hope" imposed a new reality for Arab satellite ambitions

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Yesterday, the Emirates Space Agency organized a scientific symposium with the participation of the Saudi Space Authority to discuss the important positive effects of the Emirates Mars Exploration Project, "The Hope Probe" on the development and prosperity of the Arab space sector, with a focus on the unprecedented scientific goals of the project globally, and its effects on joint Arab cooperation in the field of space In addition to reviewing the latest developments in the probe's flight, which is the first Arab mission to explore Mars, as it confirmed that the "Hope Probe" imposed a new reality for Arab space ambitions and proved to the world the competence of Arab scientific capabilities.

The seminar will be held, using video communication via the Internet, in conjunction with the arrival of the "probe of hope" to the capture orbit around the red planet on the ninth of February.

It also comes within the framework of the exchange of experiences, knowledge and ideas between the two brotherly countries under the umbrella of Arab space cooperation, in order to achieve one of the most important objectives of the UAE project to explore Mars, the "Probe of Hope", which is to strengthen cooperation and benefit from the experiences of the project team that carries with it the hopes and aspirations of the Arab and Islamic nation with an achievement that restores glories Arabs and their leadership in various sciences.

The scientific team leader of the Emirates Mars Exploration Project, “Hope Probe”, Eng. Hessa Al-Matroushi, and Head of Operations and Space Programs at the Saudi Space Authority, Eng. Majed bin, spoke in the scientific symposium that focused on the mission of the "Hope Probe" and its important implications for the prosperity and growth of the Arab space sector. Sarih Al-Enezi, the head of space missions at the Emirates Space Agency, Eng. Abdullah Khalifa Al-Marar, and the seminar was moderated by the Head of International Relations and Strategic Partnerships at the Emirates Space Agency, Eng. Nasser Al Hammadi.

The Emirati side reviewed the latest developments related to the mission of the probe and the experiences that the Emirati team had benefited from in the Emirates Project to explore Mars, while the speeches delivered during the virtual seminar dealt with ways of joint space cooperation, and how to harness Arab efforts to support this sector as a future pillar of development and development, and an essential part. One of the plans of making a promising future for the Arab world in the field of space exploration.

The Saudi side praised the Emirati achievement represented in the UAE project to explore Mars, considering it an achievement and pride for all Arabs, and a qualitative leap in the history and future of the region that has begun to prove its presence in the global arena in the field of space exploration, appreciating the Emirati efforts in providing humanity with updated data on the planet Mars to form a basis A future for space science.

The moderator, Eng. Nasser Al-Hammadi, began the dialogue by saying, “Today we are on the verge of realizing hope, the hope of the Arab region. The power of hope shortens the distance between the earth and the sky. A phrase decorated with the last piece of the (Hope Probe) as it launched to the Red Planet in July of last year and was signed His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, and His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, on a long march that stretched for millions of kilometers towards the Red Planet.

Al-Hammadi emphasized that the "Hope Probe" is the first Arab and Islamic space mission to study the Red Planet, and it is the focus of the hopes of hundreds of millions from 56 Arab and Islamic countries, and it is an ambitious project to register an honorable Arab scientific and research presence in the field of Mars exploration, and the UAE project to explore Mars serves Humanity in general and the scientific community in particular, and he puts the information he collects through his research on Mars at the disposal of more than 200 scientific institutions and research centers around the world.

Arabs to Mars

The leader of the scientific team of the Emirates Mars Exploration Project, "The Hope Probe" at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center, Eng. Hessa Al Matroushi, said: "One week separates us from the arrival of (the Hope Probe) to its scientific orbit, to be the first to arrive to the Red Planet this year," stressing that the project team Years ago, he prepared for this momentous moment with several scenarios to deal with different situations.

Al-Matroushi pointed out that the first Arab Emirati probe did not start from scratch, but rather built on global scientific achievements in the space exploration sector and adopted the concept of sharing knowledge and exchanging experiences in a continuous learning curve, and working from the early morning hours until late at night became a lifestyle for the project team that developed All his efforts and energies in it over the years in order to spread the message of hope in the Arab region affirmed by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, when he said "Arabs to Mars" about the "Hope Probe" mission.

She stated that the mission of the probe, which will understand the dynamics of the atmosphere of the planet Mars and its layers, especially the components of oxygen and hydrogen, which are the two main components of water that is the basis of life, and that this Mars mission with unprecedented scientific goals will achieve greater future strategic goals for the UAE, the Arab world and the global scientific community. .

Al-Matroushi stressed that one of the main objectives of the Emirates Mars Exploration Project, "The Hope Probe", is to build national cadres of scientists and engineers in the space sector in the Emirates, considering that the project has succeeded over the past years in achieving a large percentage of its goals by qualifying distinguished Emirati cadres in the space sector that will support it. Future competencies at the national and Arab levels.

Al-Matroushi said: “During the construction of the probe, we were keen to develop our expertise and skills through 200 new designs in the probe, and 34% of the team members were women, and the project also contained programs targeting students, teachers, university professors and researchers, reaching more than 60,000 people, most of them young Who are the future of the UAE and the Arab world, and the data collected by the project will be available at the local, regional and international levels to more than 200 universities, institutes and research centers around the world.

The head of the operations and space programs at the Saudi Space Authority, Eng. Majid bin Shaarih Al-Enezi, congratulated the UAE on the success of the "Hope Probe" mission so far, wishing it success in achieving all its goals, saying: “We look in the Saudi Space Authority to the mission of the Hope Probe as a completion of The steps taken by Saudi Arabia in pioneering space at the Arab and regional levels, which are an integral work between the sisterly Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and one of the possibilities for activating the agreement signed between the two parties to exchange information and experiences in the space field, and to cooperate in activating joint initiatives and projects that serve the two countries in particular and the Arab world in general.

Al-Anzi said that the journey of His Royal Highness Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud as the first Arab Muslim astronaut to go to space in 1985 was the first in the Kingdom's exploration of space, and it inspired young men and women in the Kingdom to specialize in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and a national strategy was developed to localize the space industry in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia within two tracks: qualifying the national scientific and academic cadres by sending young men and women to pioneering institutions in space science, and then building the infrastructure for the space industry, from research centers, landmarks and satellite manufacturing laboratories with Saudi cadres, to be followed by the establishment of the Saudi Space Authority in 2018, which It prepared an ambitious strategy to empower the Saudi space sector.

Al-Enezi pointed out the need for space projects to receive huge funds, a challenge that reinforces the importance of international cooperation and the conclusion of alliances to share experiences, stressing that the Saudi Space Authority is one of the first Arab bodies and agencies to sign the Charter of the Arab Space Cooperation Group led by the UAE, the first promising Arab bloc of its kind. To achieve Arab aspirations in the region and advance scientific advancement and advanced skills among Arab youth, to achieve Arab integration in the space industry and to create a unified Arab position that serves member states without the need to rely on external bodies to achieve Arab space security, and to qualify distinguished Arab cadres in this vital sector for the future. The nucleus of an Arab satellite agency that fully serves the Arab world.

Al-Enezi concluded with the importance of developing a plan to harmonize the priorities of the Arab space sector in coordination with the Arab Space Cooperation Group to achieve the aspirations of the Arab peoples, stressing full confidence in the "Hope Probe" team, which has achieved exceptional success in building expertise, cadres and competencies, regardless of any developments.

For his part, the head of space missions at the Emirates Space Agency, Eng.Abdullah Khalifa Al-Marar, explained that the agency has continued its pivotal role in general supervision and financing of the probe project and continuous support for it at all levels, including supporting the manufacture of 66 pieces locally from components of the "Hope Probe" in partnership between the agency And the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center, and a team of agency engineers has been part of the project's work team since its inception and in all its phases, right up to entering the scientific orbit of the probe around Mars.

Al-Marar pointed out that the agency has a network of scientific relations and strategic partnerships with leading international parties in the space sector, stressing the importance of enhancing the competitiveness of the Arab space sector through joint projects and targeted strategic partnerships, pointing to the example of the mini-satellite project "CubeSat", which is the fruit of cooperation of Emirati universities. And Bahraini.

He concluded by saying that the "Hope Probe" project resulted in a renaissance in the space sector locally, regionally and globally, and had a positive impact on the Emirati and Arab community, which interacted with the first Arab mission of its kind with a sense of collective Arab pride in this project, considering that the "Hope Probe" gave the state and the Arab region a distinguished position On the space exploration map.

The Arabs are days away from reaching the red planet for the first time in history

With the arrival of the "Probe of Hope" to Mars within the first Arab mission to explore planets led by the Emirates, the Arabs are days away from reaching the Red Planet for the first time in history.

The "Hope Probe" will reach the capture orbit around Mars next Tuesday (February 9, 2021) at 7:42 pm UAE time (6:42 pm Mecca time), after it has traveled in deep space at an average speed of 121,000 kilometers per hour. For about seven months, since its launch from the Tanegashima space base in Japan on July 20, 2020, covering about 493 million kilometers.

The Hope Probe, upon entering the capture orbit around Mars, is waiting for one of the most difficult challenges it has faced since its birth as an idea in the ministerial retreat of the UAE government in 2014, before the idea crystallized into a strategic plan and a giant scientific project with unprecedented goals in human history. Under the name of the Emirates Project to explore Mars.

The most difficult challenge is that the probe launched into space at a speed of 121 thousand kilometers per hour has to self-slow its speed to 18 thousand kilometers per hour, within 27 minutes known as the "27 minutes blind", by using the six reverse propulsion engines "Delta In »supplied by the probe.

During these critical minutes, the probe will not be connected to the control center at the ground station in Al Khawaneej in Dubai, and it must perform this operation alone, and it must also overcome the challenges it may face during these minutes that will determine the fate of the seven years the project team spent at work. Diligence and perseverance in designing, developing, building and programming the probe, so that it is ready to meet this challenge and overcome these 27 blind minutes, as it did with the challenges it faced throughout its Martian journey.

The difficulty of this stage increases because the connection will be temporarily cut off between the control center and the probe, hence the name of these 27 minutes as “blind”, as the probe, without human intervention, will handle all its challenges during this period in an autonomous manner, and in the event of any technical malfunctions in the Reverse thrust motors that the probe uses to slow down its speed, this will cause the probe to stray in deep space or to crash, and in both cases it cannot be recovered.

If the Hope Probe succeeds in skipping the 27 blind minutes and reaching the capture orbit on the specified date, the UAE will become the fifth country in the world to reach the orbit of Mars.

Successful completion of 3 stages

The probe had successfully completed, since its launch about seven months ago from the Japanese Tanegashima base on board the H2A missile, three stages: launch, early operations and navigation in space that lasted the longest period of time, during which three precise maneuvers were successfully conducted to direct the probe to be In the most accurate path to reach its destination, the probe will have on the ninth of February to successfully complete the fourth, most difficult, accurate and dangerous stage, which is the stage of entering the orbit of Mars, and if it succeeds in this, it will have two phases in its Mars mission: entering the scientific orbit and then the scientific stage During which the probe will orbit the red planet every 55 hours in an elliptical orbit ranging between 20 thousand kilometers and 43 thousand kilometers, and the team has chosen this distinctive orbit to be directly above the equator of Mars, which gives it the best location for collecting scientific data and images about It is the most Earth-like planet in the Solar System.

Upon entering the "Hope Probe" into the capture orbit, and the success of the Emirates Project to explore Mars in contact with the probe through the Ground Control Center in Al Khawaneej in Dubai, the UAE will be a point of contact between the two planets of Earth and Mars over the course of a full Martian year that extends to 687 days with Earth's calculations. Sending commands and receiving coordinates from the probe until it safely reaches the scientific orbit and then to the scientific stage, and after making sure that all matters are going according to the plans of the team, the communication with the probe will be two to three times a week, and the duration of each communication window is from six to eight hours per day Note that the delay in communication due to the distance ranges between 11 and 22 minutes, to send commands to the probe and its scientific equipment, and to receive the scientific data that it collects throughout its mission.

The hopes of millions of Arabs

Millions of people in the UAE, the Arab world, the Islamic world and the scientific community around the world are turning to the "Hope Probe", as part of the Emirates Project to explore Mars, which is a few days away from achieving an unprecedented historic achievement in the history of the region, amid a state of anticipation and waiting for the fate of this mission that carries with it hopes And the aspirations of the people of more than 56 Arab and Islamic countries to reach for the first time the orbit of the Red Planet.

The symposium will be held within the framework of exchanging experiences and knowledge between the UAE and Saudi Arabia in the field of space.

Emphasizing the importance of concerted efforts to develop joint Arab cooperation in the field of space exploration.

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