Emirates News Agency – The UAE and US missions complete their plans to cooperate in analyzing scientific data

DUBAI, 12th April / WAM / The Emirates Mission to Explore Mars (EMM), the first interplanetary exploration operation conducted by an Arab country, has completed a collaborative scientific data analysis initiative with NASA’s MAVEN Mars mission, which will open the way for more scientific cooperation and data exchange between the two missions. .

The partnership enables the sharing and collaborative analysis of data and observations made by the UAE Mars Exploration Mission’s Hope Probe and NASA’s Atmospheric and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) project, and will improve the scientific returns of the two spacecraft currently orbiting around Mars and observing Mars. The atmosphere of the red planet. The arrangement is expected to add significant value to EMM, MAVEN, and the global scientific communities that analyze data collected by missions.

“Since the inception of EMM, the project has been defined by strong international collaborations and partnerships. And the opportunity to work alongside other Mars missions and gain more ideas by sharing our feedback and working together to put the pieces of the puzzle together is our identity,” said Imran Sharaf, Project Manager for the Emirates Exploration Mission. Mars, the integration between EMM and MAVEN means we can really see the bigger picture together.

MAVEN completed its insertion into Mars orbit in 2014. Its mission is to study Mars’ upper atmosphere and ionosphere, providing insight into how the planet’s climate has changed over time.

“MAVEN and EMM are both exploring different aspects of the Martian atmosphere and upper-atmosphere system. Together we will have a much better understanding of the coupling between the two and the effect of the lower atmosphere on the escape into space of atmospheric gases,” said UCLA Planetary Science Research Scientist and Principal Investigator In Shannon Curry’s MAVEN.

The Hope Probe of the Emirates Mars Exploration Mission, which entered Mars orbit on February 9, 2021, studies the relationship between the upper layer and the lower region of the Martian atmosphere, giving the international scientific community full access to a comprehensive view of the planet’s atmosphere. At different times of the day, across different seasons.

Sharaf added: “The Hope Probe and the EMM’s Comprehensive Hope Probe are designed to achieve scientific goals that are directly aligned with MEPAG’s goals. Its observations have always been designed to provide new insights that were not possible with previous missions to Mars.

Now, by bringing the two data sets from the EMM and MAVEN missions and analyzing the results together, we can build a powerful answer to many of our fundamental questions about Mars, the evolution and dynamics of its atmosphere. ”

The EMM is designed to meet a number of goals set by the global association of Mars scientists and researchers, MEPAG – the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group. Following on from MAVEN and other previous missions, Hope set out to measure the global, diurnal, and seasonal response of Mars’ mantle to solar forcing; Atmospheric conditions related to the rate of atmospheric escape—particularly hydrogen, oxygen, and the temporal and spatiotemporal behavior of Mars’ exosphere. With early results showing separate observations of Mars’ aurora borealis and additional bandwidth and resources available to include additional observations, new measurements of aurorae phenomena have been incorporated into mission objectives, expanding its capabilities beyond the planned Hope targets.

EMM and Hope Probe are the culmination of a knowledge transfer and development effort that began in 2006, which has seen Emirati engineers work with partners around the world to develop the design, engineering and manufacturing of Emirati spacecraft.

Weighing around 1,350 kilograms and roughly the size of a small SUV, the vehicle was designed and developed by engineers at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC) working with academic partners including the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) from the University of Colorado, Boulder; Arizona State University and University of California at Berkeley.

The MAVEN mission is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center at the University of California, Berkeley, principal investigator. Spacecraft operations are performed by Lockheed Martin and science operations by the University of Colorado’s Laboratory of Space and Atmospheric Physics.

Translation: Mervat Mahmoud.

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