Emirates Mars Mission marks busy first year

  • Date: 19-Jul-2021
  • Source: Saudi Gazette
  • Sector:Defense
  • Country:Middle East
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Emirates Mars Mission marks busy first year

DUBAI "” The Emirates Mars Mission, the first interplanetary exploration undertaken by an Arab nation, tomorrow marks a year since the mission's launch from Tanegashima Space Centre in Kagoshima Prefecture, southwestern Japan, on July 20 (Tuesday). The mission has not only performed nominally across all areas but has exceeded its anticipated performance, encompassing a range of additional activities and freeing up valuable resources to perform additional observations. "We've had quite a lot of 'wiggle room' in addition to our planned parameters and our confidence in our spacecraft has gone from strength to strength, to be honest. We were able to cut the number of trajectory correction maneuvers, perform additional observations during our flight to Mars, and now have added a whole area of scientific study to the mission that I can only describe as a 'bonus'. It has been a very busy year indeed for Hope!" said EMM Project Director Omran Sharaf. The launch from Tanegashima commenced a 493,000,000 km journey to reach and orbit the Red Planet, with an original seven Trajectory Correction Manoeuvres (TCMs) cut to four because of the spacecraft's outstanding performance during the Launch and Early Operations Phase (LEOPs). This conserved resources and allowed the EMM