At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has forced lockdowns in most parts of the world, the UAE has been successfully proving the adage ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way.’

The final preparations of the Hope Probe, scheduled to launch to Mars on July 15, are in full swing. The UAE’s much-anticipated historic launch to the Red Planet in the Arab world’s first interplanetary mission is bound to send an unambiguous message to the future generation that nothing is impossible with hope.

The Emirates Mars Mission seeks to establish the UAE’s entry to the space industry, advance the country’s capabilities in space science and engineering and develop young Emirati and Arab talents capable of contributing to global efforts in space exploration.

In the words of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, “The Hope Probe embodies the culture of possibilities deeply rooted in the UAE’s approach, philosophy and journey of accelerating development since the foundation. Our journey to space represents a message of hope to every Arab citizen that we have the innovation, resilience and efforts to compete with the greatest of nations in the race for knowledge.”

The Hope Probe is certainly an accomplishment for every Arab, a source of pride for every Emirati, and a path-breaking achievement for our engineers.

The entire nation is proud of the fact that despite global flight suspensions and health precautions, our engineers are working according to schedule to complete the region’s top space science project. The probe was developed in 6 years, less than the usual global period of 10, and at half the cost.

The Hope Probe will be the first probe to provide a complete picture of the Martian atmosphere and its layers when it reaches the Red Planet in 2021. It will help answer key questions about the global Martian atmosphere and the loss of hydrogen and oxygen gases into space over the span of one Martian year.

The mission has pertinently been named ‘Hope’ and Sheikh Mohammed had lucidly elucidated the reasons behind the name earlier. As he put it, “This probe represents hope for millions of young Arabs looking for a better future. There is no future, no achievement, no life, without hope.”

The probe will create mankind’s first integrated model of the Red Planet’s atmosphere. The spacecraft will send back to earth over 1,000 gigabytes of new Mars data. This information will be received in the Science Data Centre in the UAE through different ground stations spread around the world. These data will subsequently be catalogued and analysed in the UAE by the Emirates Mars Mission science team, and then shared with more than 200 institutions worldwide for the benefit of thousands of space specialists.

 The UAE’s continual investment in the space sector has proved hugely rewarding.

As Dr Ahmed Belhoul, Chairman of the UAE Space Agency, points out, the space exploration programme is witnessing remarkable growth and is currently the largest across the region.

There are more than 50 entities and establishments in the space sector with over 3,000 employees and regional and international partnerships with leading institutions in the space industry.

The UAE is blessed with a leadership that believes the journey of development will always remain a race for excellence.

The UAE authorities deserve all praise for wholeheartedly collaborating with nations to build a better future for entire humanity.