INTRODUCTION
- The UAE announced that they will send a probe to an asteroid between Jupiter and Mars to collect data on the universe’s origins on October 5, 2021.
- If the country succeeds in landing its spacecraft on the asteroid, it will join an exclusive club of nations that includes the United States, Japan, and the European Union, all of which have successfully landed probes on an asteroid or comet.
DETAILS OF THE MISSION –
- The UAE probe is to land on the asteroid, stay there until its batteries die, and then relay data back to Earth about the asteroid’s composition.
- When is it going to be released?
- The asteroid will be launched in 2028 and landed in 2033, according to UAE plans.
- The data that the UAE mission will acquire is still being debated. There are also continuing discussions regarding the instruments that the spacecraft will carry, which will impact the features that it can observe.
MISSION OF UAE –
- The UAE’s trip to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter will take five years and cover 3.6 billion kilometres.
- To get enough speed to approach the asteroid, the spaceship will need to slingshot past Venus first, then the Earth. About 560 million kilometres distant lies the main asteroid belt.
- For the research, the UAE’s Space Agency will collaborate with the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.
- Because the spacecraft will travel close and far from the sun, the mission will be difficult.
- Given the asteroid’s difficulty, the asteroid expedition is expected to be more costly than previous UAE efforts.
