[imagesource: Artur Debat/Getty Images]

Space X’s mission to the International Space Station may be the talk of the proverbial town, but on July 14, a robotic craft named Amal is due to lift off from a remote Japanese island and start its journey to Mars.

Amal means ‘hope’, and UAE programme director Sarah Al-Amiri hopes that the first Arab mission ever to set sail for Mars will inspire young Arab scientists to pursue careers in space engineering.

The launch will take place on the island of Tanegashima, and is slated to take seven months to reach Mars, which is 493 million kilometres away.

Say that number out loud – wild, right?

Reporting below via the BBC:

[It will send] back ground-breaking new data about its climate and atmosphere.

The probe will remain orbiting Mars for an entire Martian year, 687 days, to gather sufficient data. A single orbit around Mars will take the probe 55 hours.

Image: MOHAMMED BIN RASHID SPACE CENTRE

Powered by a Japanese rocket, it will be carrying three types of sensors for measuring the complex make-up of Mars’s atmosphere. These include a high-resolution multiband camera for measuring the planet’s dust and ozone.

The other two sensors are an infrared spectrometer, used to measure both the upper and lower atmosphere and an ultraviolet spectrometer for measuring oxygen and hydrogen levels.

Should the mission succeed, it will provide “the most comprehensive, holistic picture of Mars’s climate”, says Sir Ian Blatchford, director of the UK’s Science Museum Group.

Whilst the UAE does have a history of space travel, this is unprecedented terrain, and could herald a shift in power:

“It’s a real step forwards for Mars exploration, because it shows that other nations – rather than the European Space Agency and Nasa can actually go there – well we hope it will get there. Mars has a very long history of mission failures,” [Monica Grady, professor of planetary and space science at Britain’s Open University] said.

If Hope reaches Mars next year, as planned, it will do so in the UAE’s 50th year as a nation, but they’re not stopping there, and have promised to build a human settlement on Mars by 2117.

Not sure that’s a great idea, as we humans tend to destroy everything we touch, but 10 points for bravado.

[source:bbc]