European Space Agency looks forward to ‘Hope’s exciting new discoveries’
Following the Hope Probe’s successful insertion into orbit around the Mars on Tuesday evening, ESA in a statement to Emirates News Agency (WAM) said, «It’s another remarkable milestone for the space programme of the UAE and a great success for the UAE Space Agency, the Mohammad bin Rashid Space Centre and involved research establishments of the UAE, WAM reports.
«We look forward to the important and exciting new discoveries about Mars that this mission is sure to make.»
Hope as extra set of eyes on Mars
The ESA added that «To follow UAE’s success story over the last ten years and to see Hope reaching Mars’ orbit truly rejoices the international space community. It makes the UAE and its engineers and scientists even more attractive as partners in international space endeavours.«
The agency said Hope Probe would provide an extra set of eyes on Mars, along with the ESA’s existing Mars missions.
Mars Express, launched by the ESA in December 2003, has been orbiting the Red Planet for the past 17 years, making the ESA the third space agency to make such a feat after the former Soviet Union space programme and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the US.
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) joined this exclusive club in 2014 and now the UAE has become its fifth member.
Hope to complement existing missions
Schiaparelli, a technology demonstration vehicle carried by the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) was launched in 2016, as part of the ExoMars programme, a joint endeavour between Russia’s Roscosmos State Corporation and the ESA. They have postponed the 2020 launch of the second ExoMars mission to the Red Planet to 2022 due to certain technical reasons.
The ESA explained to WAM that three instruments would build on Mars Express and TGO’s atmospheric investigations: EXI multi-spectral framing camera with band passes for aerosols, EMIRS-TIR spectrometer for temperature profiles and aerosol retrievals, and EMUS – a far-UV instrument for thermosphere investigations.
«Hope will provide an extra set of eyes on Mars’ weather and climate: It is important that we can do continual monitoring of Mars in order to monitor atmospheric circulation and weather patterns, and place constraints on the sources and sinks of chemical species.»
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