On Tuesday night, the UAE and the Arab world will make history, even if the Hope probe fails to orbit Mars, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid said.
As the spacecraft reaches the Red
Planet, it faces its mission's most precarious point.
There is a 50 percent chance of
success in the complicated maneuver required to carry the probe from high-speed
space travel into Martian orbit.
Sheikh Mohammed, vice president
and ruler of Dubai, said in a video message on Twitter, "The biggest
challenge will be to enter the orbit of Mars."
"Fifty percent of human
missions that tried before us could not enter orbit. But I say even if we do
not enter orbit, we have entered history."
If everything goes to plan, the
mission will be a milestone moment for the nation's 50th year, he said.
He wrote earlier on Twitter:
"Tomorrow, we're going to start preparing for the next 50 years. Tomorrow,
we're going to prove to the world that the Emirates and the Emiratis have
nothing impossible."
"Tomorrow, we will take Arabs
to the farthest point [they have ever been] in the universe."
Following a seven-month journey
through space, the UAE-built spacecraft will reach Mars on Tuesday. There is a high
risk of failure of the highly complicated maneuver required to push it over the
final hurdle.
From 7.30 pm, the thrusters of
Hope will start firing to slow it down and take it where gravity wants to be to
catch it and keep it in orbit.
A communication delay would mean
that at Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre, mission control would not know
whether for almost 30 minutes the move was a success.
If successful, the UAE will become
the fifth space agency to accomplish the feat of the U.S., the former Soviet
Union, the European Space Agency, and India after missions.