Space: Emirates Airlines to explore the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter

In February 2021, the UAE placed its “Amal” or “Amal” (Hope, in French) probe around Mars’ orbit, becoming the first Arab country to achieve this feat, several months after sending the first Emirati astronaut into space. .

The UAE Space Agency announced, on Tuesday, that an unmanned spacecraft is scheduled to set off on a five-year journey from 2028 and travel 3.6 billion kilometers to reach the main asteroid belt behind Mars, according to officials.

“The mission will make its first planetary approach to the orbit of Venus in the middle of 2028, followed by a near-Earth orbit in the middle of 2029,” the government body in the United Arab Emirates said in a statement.

The statement said that the mission will monitor its first asteroid belt in 2030, and is expected to monitor a total of seven more before landing on an asteroid located 560 million km from Earth in 2033.

The country, made up of seven emirates including the capital Abu Dhabi, has entered the space sector in recent years, in parallel with its diplomatic, military and economic ambitions.

In September 2019, the UAE sent its first astronaut on an eight-day mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS). In February 2021, the Amal probe was successfully placed into orbit around Mars, after taking off from Japan.

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