The staff completed the maneuver on the first attempt

The Hope probe successfully moves to its scientific orbit

Probe of Hope captured a monochrome image of Cerberus Fossae from its closest point in orbit.

From the source

The Emirates Mars Exploration Project (Hope Probe) announced yesterday that the Hope probe will move from the capture orbit to the scientific orbit, after the success of the first maneuver by operating the propulsion engines of the probe, which lasted for 8.56 minutes, and thus the probe is now in its final orbit around Mars, in preparation for the start of its mission. The scientific course that will last for two years, and may require a slight direction for its course later.

The director of the Emirates Mars Exploration Project, Omran Sharaf, said, “The maneuver to move the Hope probe to the scientific orbit is extremely important, and is the last critical moment for the mission, due to the possibility of losing the probe during the maneuver, and the results of that process are currently being evaluated, and we are confident that we will not need to. Perform another major orbit modification maneuver. ”

The Al-Amal probe moved from the capture orbit of 1063 km to 42,461 km, to a scientific orbit of 20,000 km to 43,000 km.

This maneuver is the last dangerous operation to use propulsion engines, during the probe's journey since its launch into space, on July 20.

The scientific stage of the probe will begin on April 14th, with a number of calibration and testing processes aimed at ensuring the safety of the three scientific devices and ensuring the accuracy of their scientific measurements.

The scientific mission of the probe, which will extend for two years of collecting scientific data, will begin on May 23, 2021.

In turn, Deputy Project Manager for Scientific Affairs, Hessa Al Matrooshi, said, “Once we are able to reach our stable scientific orbit and start using our scientific tools, we will start building data sets and testing our systems with live data.

And that data that we will process, coordinate and share with the scientific and academic communities in the world in an open way through our website. ”

The process of collecting scientific data about the red planet is a complex process, consisting of conducting several "rotations" around Mars, and determining each set of measurements to build an integrated picture of the movement of dust, ice and water vapor in the layers of the planet's atmosphere.

In addition, the probe will measure atmospheric temperatures, the diffusion of hydrogen gas, oxygen, carbon monoxide and ozone.

Hope's unique elliptical orbit, at a 25-degree angle, enables high-resolution data and images of the planet's atmosphere to be collected every 225 hours (9.5 days).

It is noteworthy that the engineers of the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center have worked on the design and construction of the Hope Probe and its scientific equipment, in cooperation with international knowledge partners, including the Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, Arizona State University and the University of California Berkeley.

The historic Al-Amal probe journey to the Red Planet coincides with the year of the UAE's golden jubilee celebrations.

3 scientific devices

The Hope Probe carries three scientific instruments: the first is an exploration camera, which is a 12-megapixel digital camera that takes high-resolution images of Mars, as well as measuring water ice and ozone in the lower atmosphere.

The second is an infrared spectrophotometer, which collects information on surface and atmosphere temperatures, and measures the general distribution of dust, ice clouds and water vapor in the lower layer of the Martian atmosphere.

In addition to a UV spectrophotometer, it measures the oxygen and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere, and the hydrogen and oxygen diversity in the upper atmosphere of the red planet.

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