[In Depth] Small Gulf nation aims for big splash on Mars

The United Arab Emirates is embarking on a startlingly ambitious project: a science mission to Mars. In July 2020, the oil-rich nation aims to launch a spacecraft called Hope that will orbit the Red Planet and probe its atmosphere from top to bottom. The mission team, some 120 young Emirati scientists, is now gearing up for a critical design review. To be launched on a Japanese rocket, Hope will gradually drift relative to the martian surface once in orbit, offering researchers a global view of how the atmosphere evolves. Hope's second goal is to probe how the martian atmosphere bleeds off into space, a phenomenon that, over billions of years, has left the planet bone dry and inhospitable. Author: Sedeer El-Showk
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Planetary Science Source Type: news