UAE announces Probe targeting asteroid between Mars & Jupiter:
Key Facts:
- If this mission is successful, the UAE will join the European Union, Japan, and the United States in an exclusive club. These countries have already completed their mission, which was either an asteroid or a comet.
- The UAE mission would remain on the asteroid and transmit information about the asteroid`s composition to Earth.
- The mission will be launched in 2028 and will land on an asteroid in 2033.
- 3.6 billion kilometres will be travelled by spacecraft over the course of a five-year journey.
- It will have to slingshot across Venus and then Earth in order to gather enough speed to reach an asteroid located approximately 560 million kilometres away.
Partnering agency:
The UAE Space Agency will collaborate with the University of Colorado`s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics to develop this project. The laboratory will provide the UAE`s space agency with a cost and a description of the asteroid`s specific features.
Background:
This project was announced in the context of the first successful launch of the "Hope probe" into Mars orbit in February 2021. The "Hope" mission, the size of a car, cost $200 million.
UAE’s mission on Moon:
The UAE also intends to send an unmanned spacecraft to the moon in 2024.
Human Colony on Mars:
The UAE has also set the exalted aim of building a human colony on Mars by 2117.
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