UAE extends Emirates Mars Mission to 2028 as Hope Probe marks five years around red planet

Dubai: The UAE on Tuesday announced a three-year extension of the Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) until 2028, as the country's landmark Hope Probe marked five years since its historic launch into the Martian obit.

The milestone that has redefined the Arab world's place in space exploration was announced by Dr Ahmad Belhoul Al Falasi, UAE Minister of Sports and Chairman of the UAE Space Agency.

Since entering Martian orbit, the Hope Probe has collected a staggering 10 terabytes of Martian data, all made available through its Science Data Centre to researchers around the world.

"When we launched the project, the target was one terabyte, but we have now gathered 10 times the needed data," Dr Al Falasi said, capturing the sheer scale of what the mission has achieved.

“When we designed the project, the objective was to be in Martian orbit was for two years,” the minister. He pointed out that the Hope Probe has been in the Martian orbit “in good shape” for five years as of February 9.

He said the extension was announced on the directives of Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defence of the UAE and Chairman of the Supreme Space Council.

According to the minister, the mission encouraged more students to explore science and maths, and it helped see an increase of 31 per cent of students in the STEM stream in the last four years.

A total of 16 batches of data from the red planet have been released by the Mars mission, experts from the UAE Space Agency revealed.

Dr Nora Al Saeed, principal investigator of EMM, said the Hope Probe has delivered an unprecedented, comprehensive picture of the Martian atmosphere, documenting daily and seasonal changes across the full Martian year.

Scientists compiled extensive catalogues of weather phenomena, including dust storms, providing critical data to improve both Mars and Earth climate models.

“We were able to track every single dust storm that happened,” said Dr Nora.

Beyond climate science, she said, the probe captured the highest-resolution images to date of Mars’ smaller moon, Deimos, including previously unseen regions. These observations are advancing knowledge of the Deimos moon’s origin and composition.

The mission has consistently exceeded expectations by making discoveries and capturing remarkable images including identifying new types of auroras on Mars.

In a rare astronomical achievement, Dr Nora said, the mission observed the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS as it passed through the Solar System, analysing gas and dust emissions to help scientists study material from other star systems.

Dr Nora said the mission’s next phase will expand seasonal coverage and investigate how Mars’ lower and upper atmospheres interact with research expected to unlock decades of new insights into planetary climates.

“Every additional Mars year of data that we get is going to unlock hundreds of years of research that we can do with that data,” she pointed out.

Mohsen Al Awadhi, director of the Space Missions Department at the UAE Space Agency, said the Mission will conduct comprehensive studies of the Martian atmosphere, specifically targeting the northern spring season and the onset of the water ice cloud season.

“We are making use of whatever we did for the EMM to improve our capabilities for the upcoming Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt (EMA) that will be launched in the quarter of 2028. We are also repurposing some components like the engineering modules for the asteroid belt mission,” he told Gulf News on the sidelines of the press conference.

“We are focussing on providing unique data that no one else has provided. We aim to build capabilities beyond the space agency, involving universities, other institutions and our partners.”

EMA consists of a six-year design and development phase followed by the launch of the MBR Explorer spacecraft, and a seven-year mission to the main asteroid belt beyond Mars, performing a series of close flybys to observe seven main belt asteroids, and finally landing on Justitia.

Al Awadhi also highlighted the Mars mission’s contribution to the scientific community and the UAE’s portfolio in the space sector.

He said with the data from the EMM, as many as 250 research papers associated with Martian data have been presented in local and international scientific conferences and 35 peer-reviewed scientific papers have been published.

On July 20, 2020, during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the UAE launched the Hope Probe from Japan's Tanegashima Space Centre. It became the Arab world's first interplanetary mission and made the UAE only the fifth entity in history, after the US, Russia, India and China, to reach Mars.

From its unique orbit ranging from 20,000 to 43,000 km above the Martian surface, the Hope Probe completes one revolution around the planet every 55 hours.

The primary science mission of the mission was to collect data on the Martian atmosphere for a full Martian year, an equivalent of two Earth years.

The second extension announced on Tuesday will see the EMM going on for a total of eight Earth years. With the Hope Probe entering its next chapter, it remains operational and delivering critical space data, just as its name always promised: hope.