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Arab Mars Probe May Resolve Red Planet's Atmospheric Puzzles

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The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Space Agency’s plan to send a compact car-sized probe into orbit around Mars appears to have a dual purpose. With last week’s announcement of its blueprints and science goals for the mission now set for launch in July 2020, the UAE signaled that the probe will secure the Gulf state’s role in both the international planetary science community and the global space technology sector.

The aim is to both ensure Arab participation in the exploration of Mars and potentially future solar system science targets while also inspiring the UAE’s own youth to pursue careers in engineering and space.  The UAE's stated goal is to become an ambitious player in the burgeoning $300 billion a year global space industry.

The 1500 kilogram Hope (or “al-Amal” in Arabic) probe may spend as long as four years in Mars orbit. Once there, its work will include analysis of the Martian atmosphere in hopes of finding answers to ongoing conundrums involving Mars’ long term water loss via atmospheric photo-dissociation. That is, the reactive chemical breakdown of water (H2O) brought on by the Sun’s incoming photons.

Its mission aims include observing clouds and dust storms; changes in atmospheric layers and for the first time how the atmosphere interacts with Mars’ varied topography, from the large shield volcano Olympus Mons to the deep canyons of Mars’ Valles Marineris.

But will the probe actually be more than just an Emirates proof of technology mission?

“The UAE Space Agency has been very consistent in that they don't want to do a technology demonstration mission,” said Bruce Jakosky, NASA MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) mission Principal Investigator and a Hope mission Co-Investigator. “They want to contribute substantively to the world's exploration and understanding of Mars.”

To that end, after being inserted into an elliptical 55-hour orbit in the first quarter of 2021, Hope will carry out its nominal two-year science mission at altitudes ranging between 22,000 to 44,000 kilometers. From there, the mission will investigate how the lower and upper levels of the Martian atmosphere are connected. One goal is to create the first global picture of how the Martian atmosphere changes throughout the day and between seasons.

Jakosky also sees the Hope mission as a valuable complement to MAVEN science. MAVEN is focusing on Mars’ upper atmosphere, since as he notes that was the key unexplored region of Mars that could influence climate history. In contrast, Hope will specifically measure lower-atmospheric properties such as dust content and atmospheric temperature, mapped out over the planet.

Hope’s measurements of conditions in Mars’ lower atmosphere should help fill in the gaps on how and why the lower atmosphere affects the escape of oxygen and hydrogen from the upper atmosphere into space.

“The Hope science measurements will make a valuable contribution by themselves,” said Jakosky. “And if MAVEN is still operating when Hope gets there, the combination will be very powerful.”

In all, the Hope mission should send back more than 1000 gigabytes of data that will be catalogued and analyzed in the UAE and then shared with U.S. partner institutions and the global Mars science community.

Jakosky says he’s providing input based on his own Mars mission experience and notes that there’s a long list of Mars "lessons learned" that can be shared with his UAE colleagues.

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