Chooduvartha station (Mars): The UAE’s Hope spacecraft reached Mars orbit, making it the fifth agency to enter the planet’s gravitational zone.
The probe reached at 7:57pm UAE time Tuesday, said a note issued after the confirmation was relayed to Earth.
Crucial phase in Mars Mission
What followed next was the most crucial half-hour in its seven-month journey.
The spacecraft had to slow down to just 18,000 kmph (11,185 mph) from 121,000 kmph and depend on autonomous self-correcting systems.
UAE’s Mars Mission
The probe is a 1,350kg (1.5-tonne) orbiter modelled as a weather satellite to analyze dynamic aspects of the atmosphere across Mars.
The Hope project’s 2-year mission also aims to study hydrogen and oxygen in Mars’s upper atmosphere and why those elements are lost to space.
Back to back Mars missions
The UAE’s probe will be the first of three global Mars missions in the coming days.
On Wednesday, China’s Tianwen-1 mission will start ticking off an audacious to-do list that includes placing a vehicle on Mars.
NASA’s SUV size rover on Mars
Next week, NASA will try to land on Mars the largest rover yet—an SUV-sized behemoth—in an ancient lake bed.
The Hope project marks the Arab nation’s primary venture into deep space, part of efforts to reduce a dependence on oil and project its global standing.
The UAE set up its space agency in 2014, sent an astronaut to International Space Station in 2019, and plans to send an unmanned spaceship to moon in 2024.