In pictures: Milestones in the UAE space programme

2000: The communications satellite Thuraya 1 is launched on October 21 by Sea Launch, a multinational spacecraft launch company, from a marine platform in the equatorial Pacific. The 3,200 kg spacecraft, designed to handle thousands of voice, fax, and data transmissions simultaneously from/to mobile telephones, was used for testing and backup until May 2007.

2003: Thuraya 2, is fired into space on June 10, to handle 13,750 simultaneous voice calls. It serves most of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia.

2008: Thuraya 3, the communications satellite from the UAE, was placed on a geosynchronous orbit January 2.Technically it’s the same as Thuraya 2 but is placed in a different orbit.

2009: DubaiSat-1, a remote sensing Earth observation satellite built by the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST), is put in space on July 29 after the launch from Baikonur Kosmodrome, Kazakhstan.

2011: Al Yah 1, the first satellite of Yahsat (Al Yah Satellite Communications, owned by Mubadala) is launched on April 11 from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana.

2012: Al Yah 2 is launched on April 24 from Baikonur Kosmodrome, Kazakhstan, 2012. It helped extend a wider range of C, Ku, Ka, and L-band solutions for terrestrial, maritime and aero platforms to consumers, governments and enterprises.

2013: DubaiSat-2, is an electro-optical Earth observation satellite built by the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology, is launched from Baikonur on November 21. The mission is to provide electro-optical images for users within the UAE and abroad.

2018: Al Yah 3 is put into orbit in January 2018, extending its commercial Ka-band coverage to 35 additional markets, including South America for the first time.

2018: KhalifaSat, a remote sensing Earth observation satellite designed and built at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai, is considered the first Emirati-made satellite. It is launched into orbit on October 30 from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Centre.

UAE's KhalifaSat successfully lifts off to space on board H2-A rocket from Japan's Tanegashima Space Centre.

2019: First Emirati astronaut Hazza Al Mansouri makes history by becoming the first Arab on the International Space Station. He rode aboard a Soyuz spacecraft from Baikonur on September 25 and spent eight days doing experiments aboard ISS.

Emirati astronaut Hazzaa Al Mansoori during televised link to public from International Space Station (ISS).

2019: The UAE successfully launched the Mars Hope mission to Mars on July 19. Mission goals include creating the first holistic diurnal picture of Mars’ atmosphere.

2020. The Hope Probe is expected to enter the Mars orbit on February 9.

2024: The UAE plans to send an unmanned mission to the moon’. The mission will include a rover named Rashid to cover areas not explored in previous missions.

Above, the technical specifications of the Rashid rover.