UAE set to land spacecraft on asteroid between Mars and Jupiter in 2034

The UAE Space Agency on Sunday expanded upon its mission to explore an asteroid belt situated between Mars and Jupiter. Buoyed by the success of the Hope Mars orbiter, the agency said the mission will be named Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt (EMA) and launched on a spacecraft named MBR Explorer.

The ambitious mission was first announced in October 2021 and according to the latest update, it is scheduled for launch in 2028. The mission will attempt to visit seven different asteroids and even land on one of them called (269) Justitia.

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"EMA takes a pioneering leap as the first mission to embark on the most extensive tour of the main asteroid belt nestled between Mars and Jupiter, culminating in a historic landing on (269) Justitia the mysterious spectrally red asteroid," read a statement by the space agency.

Speaking after unveiling the name, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the vice president and prime minister of the UAE and the ruler of Dubai, said his country will continue to expand its horizons in space.

"We will never cease to look ahead; we will never cease our efforts to develop a brighter future for our young generations," said Al Maktoum whose name inspired the explorer's nomenclature.

Apart from UAE Space Agency, the mission will have participating entities from YahSat, UAE University, TII, Khalifa University and NYUAD.

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Visting different asteroids

After the launch in 2028, the MRB Explorer will visit its first asteroid in 2030 and then pass by six asteroids viz. (10254) Westerwald, (623) Chimaera, (13294) Rockox; (88055) 2000 VA28, (23871) 1998 RC76 and (59980) 1999 SG6. The purpose of visiting the asteroids is that all of them represent "different classes of asteroid with varied compositional types,"

Notably, the MRB Explorer will have four scientific instruments to probe the geology, composition and structure of the asteroids: a high-resolution camera, a thermal infrared camera, a mid-wavelength spectrometer and an infrared spectrometer.

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After the flybys, the mission will undertake its most challenging part and that is landing upon Justitia, also known as the red asteroid in 2034. Apart from Justitia and Chimaera which are 50 kilometres in diameter, the rest of the asteroids are relatively small with less than 10 km across.

A school of astrophysicists believe that life came into existence via a rogue asteroid that crashed on Earth billions of years ago. Some believe that Justitia may have the building blocks required to sustain life and thus, a decade from now, UAE will be landing on the asteroid to put the theory to the test.

Despite being founded nearly a decade only, the UAE Space Agency has made tremendous strides. In 2020, the Hope Mars orbiter became the first Arab spacecraft to reach the Red Planet, making it the first agency to achieve success in the first attempt.

(With inputs from agencies)

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