DUBAI, April 12, 2022 (UAE Government Media Office) — The Emirates Mars Mission, the first interplanetary exploration undertaken by an Arab nation, has finalised a science data analysis collaboration initiative with NASA’s MAVEN Mars Mission, which will pave the way towards greater scientific collaboration and data exchange between the two missions.
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VIENNA, 28 October (UN Information Service) – The capacity-building portfolio under the Access to Space for All Initiative of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) is expanding. UNOOSA and the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to promote technical development and cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space.
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Airbus Defence and Space and Abu Dhabi’s Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre have signed an agreement to work together on the Emirates Lunar Mission to operate the Rashid rover on the moon next year. The Khaleej Times reports:
The MBRSC recently signed an agreement with Airbus Defence and Space, a division of Airbus responsible for defence and aerospace products and services, for collaboration on the country’s Mission to Moon for ‘in-situ’ tests.
These tests are conducted on or in the soil at site on the moon’s surface by means of the material adhesive demonstration (MAD) experiment.
The MoU was signed by Salem AlMarri, deputy director-general, MBRSC, and Andreas Lindenthal, head of business operations and products, Airbus Space Systems, on the sidelines of the International Astronautical Congress, the world’s premier space event, being held at the World Trade Centre in Dubai.
The Rashid rover is set to be carried to the lunar surface by ispace’s HAKUTO-R lander in 2022.
SpaceX has won a contract to launch to launch the United Arab Emirates first largely domestically produced satellite as a rideshare payload aboard a Falcon 9 rocket in 2023.
MBZ-Sat will be the UAE’s fourth imaging satellite, with nearly double the resolution of the earlier KhalifaSat. MBZ-Sat is named after Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is crown prince of Abu Dhabi and deputy supreme commander of the UAE Armed Forces.
“We’re honored to support this mission, and we look forward to the successful launch of MBZ-SAT and many future projects,” said Tom Ochinero, SpaceX vice president of commercial sales.
The Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC) is constructing the 700 kg (1,543 lb) satellite. Engineers have completion of MBZ-Sat’s structure model and conducted initial tests, the center said.
Project director Amer Al Sayegh said during a press conference earlier this week that 90 percent of the mechanical parts and 50 percent of the electrical and electronic elements are being manufactured in the UAE. MBRSC is working with UAE-based companies Strata, EPI, Rockford Xellerix, HALCON and Falcon Group.
SpaceX has launched two Transporter rideshare missions to date. The company set a new world record by lofting 143 commercial and government satellites into orbit in January 2021. The Transporter-2 flight launched 88 satellites in June 2021. A third Transporter rideshare mission is scheduled for January.
The lander, larger in size and payload design capacity, is planned to be designed and manufactured in the US
Colorado Springs, Colo. (ispace PR) – Today, ispace, inc. (ispace) unveiled its next generation lunar lander, Series 2, which the company plans to first use for its third lunar mission (Mission 3), as well as subsequent future missions. Standing at approximately 9 ft tall and 14 ft wide (approx. 2.7 m tall by 4.2 m wide), including its legs, it is larger in both size and customer payload design capacity than ispace’s first-generation lander model, Series 1, which the company is developing for its first and second missions.
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TOKYO (ispace PR) –- Today, ispace announced that it began the assembly of the flight model for its lunar lander, which is to be used in the company’s first mission scheduled to launch in 2022. This is a major engineering milestone in the development of the lander and part of the final stretch toward our first mission.
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Dubai, UAE, 14 April 2021 (ispace PR) — The Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) has signed a contract with Japan’s ispace, inc. (ispace), under which the latter will provide payload delivery services for the ambitious Emirates Lunar Mission. Under this agreement, ispace becomes a key strategic and implementation partner to MBRSC on the Emirates Lunar Mission, the first of its kind from the Arab world.
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The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has selected its first female astronaut as emirates doubles its astronaut corps to four.
Nora Al Matrooshi and Mohammed Al Mulla were selected to begin training. They join Hazza Al Mansouri, who became the first Emirati to journey into space during a trip to the International Space Station in 2019, and Sultan Al Neyadi, who was the backup astronaut for that mission.
Al Matrooshi is a 27-year old mechanical engineer who is employed by the National Petroleum Construction Company. She is a native of Abu Dhabi.
Born in 1988, Al Mulla is a pilot and head of the training department at Air Wing Centre. He became the youngest pilot in the Dubai Police at the age of 19, and received a bravery medal from Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, vice president and ruler of Dubai.
Al Matrooshi and Al Mulla were selected from among 4,305 applicants, including 1,400 women. The will begin training at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston at the end of this year.
MOSCOW (Roscosmos PR) — On March 20, a launch of the Soyuz-2 launch vehicle with the Fregat upper stage is scheduled from the Baikonur Cosmodrome that will deliver 38 spacecraft (SC) from 18 countries into three sun-synchronous orbits:
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The United Arab Emirates is celebrating today as the nation’s first planetary spacecraft, Hope, has entered orbit around Mars as scheduled.
The UAE Space Agency tweeted:
Congratulations to our leadership, our nation and the Emirates Mars Mission’s heroes that have achieved the impossible! The #HopeProbe’s historic journey to the Red Planet doubles our joy as it adds to a year of celebrations in the country to mark the Golden Jubilee of the #UAE.
Launched on a Japanese H-IIA rocket last July, Hope will study Martian weather cycles and make other observations of the Red Planet. It will gather data on why the planet is losing hydrogen and oxygen into space.
Hope is the first planetary mission undertaken by an Arab nation and comes as the UAE is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its founding. The project is seen as a major advance for the nation’s science, technology and engineering sectors.
While that is true, Hope was actually built in Colorado with the participation of engineers from three American universities with substantial expertise in space missions. The Hope page in Wikipedia has a succinct summary:
The mission design, development, and operations are led by the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC). The spacecraft was developed by MBRSC and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder, with support from Arizona State University (ASU) and the University of California, Berkeley….It was built by a joint Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP)/Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) team at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Although UAE paid for the $200 million mission, it wouldn’t have been possible without substantial American assistance.
This is not to rain on anyone’s parade, but simply to give credit where credit is due. Under other circumstances, Hope would likely be labeled a joint UAE-American mission to Mars.
New batch of astronauts set to be announced in January 2021
DUBAI (Dubai Media Office PR) — The Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) today announced that 14 candidates have qualified for the final phase of the second batch of the UAE Astronaut Programme, which aims to train and prepare a team of Emiratis for scientific space missions, as part of the UAE’s National Space Programme. The selected candidates will now undergo final interviews conducted by a committee consisting of specialists from MBRSC, including Emirati astronauts Hazzaa AlMansoori and Sultan AlNeyadi along with NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Jessica Meir.
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HOUSTON (NASA PR) — NASA has signed a Reimbursable Space Act Agreement with the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to train UAE astronauts on International Space Station systems at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston later this year.
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by Robert Sanders
UC Berkeley
At 2:58 p.m. PDT today (Sunday, July 19), the United Arab Emirates (UAE) successfully launched an interplanetary probe — the first by any country in the Arab world — thanks, in part, to science collaboration, training and instrument components provided by the University of California, Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL).
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The United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) Hope spacecraft is on its way to Mars after a successful launch from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan.
A H-IIA rocket lifted off on Monday morning at 6:58 a.m. JST (5:58 p.m. EDT on Sunday). Hope separated from the second stage about an hour later and sent its first signal to controllers.
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TEMPE, Ariz. (ASU PR) — The Emirates Mars Mission, the first interplanetary exploration undertaken by an Arab nation, is expected to lift off in July (exact launch date depends on weather conditions) on an H-IIA rocket from Tanegashima, Japan, and arrive at Mars in February 2021, where it will spend two years orbiting the red planet gathering crucial science data.
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