The United Arab Emirates (UAE) space agency announced plans to send an unmanned probe to Mars in 2021, according to a Youtube video published Tuesday.
The UAE hopes the project will be the “catatylst for a new generation of Arab scientists and engineers,” which will help create an Arab space industry. The UAE openly acknowledges that symbolism was part of the reason for the mission.
“Look back in history, the Middle East was once a powerhouse for innovation and science,” Ibrahim Al Qasimi, the deputy project manager of the probe, says in the video. “Muslim civlizations were once pioneers in mathmatics and astronomy. This will be the first ever Arab Islamic mission to another planet.”
The probe will take about seven months to reach Mars and will orbit the Red Planet to build a complete picture of its atmosphere. The mission is entirely managed by UAE citizens, and relativly little technology was purchased from non-Mulsim space agencies — like America’s NASA, Russia’s Roscosmos, or the European Space Agency.
Data collected by the probe will be distrubted to scientists at 200 universities and research institutions around the world.
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NASA signed a pact to cooperate in space with the UAE in June at a meeting in Abu Dhabi. The pact is part of NASA Director Charles Bolden’s effort to “to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science.”
It is unclear how NASA expects to benefit from the pact, as the UAE’s program is far behind America’s space agency. The UAE launched its first satellite in 2009 and has only scheduled the launch of four satellites. NASA launched its first satellite in 1958 and has put more than 500 satellites into orbit and conducted more than 100 manned missions into space.
“The United Arab Emirates and the United States of America are long-standing allies and have deep economic, cultural and diplomatic ties,” Khalifa Al Romaithi, the chairman of the UAE’s space agency, wrote in a press statement. “We at the UAE Space Agency genuinely welcome the opportunity to collaborate and work with the USA and NASA in the fields of aeronautics, space science, and the peaceful exploration of outer space toward the common goal of fostering the well-being of humankind.”
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