![]() That's why their arrivals are also close together.Ĭalled Amal, or Hope in Arabic, the Gulf nation's spacecraft is seeking an especially high orbit-13,500 by 27,000 miles high (22,000 kilometers by 44,000 kilometers)-all the better to monitor the Martian weather. "We are quite excited as engineers and scientists, at the same time quite stressed and happy, worried, scared," said Omran Sharaf, project manager for the UAE.Īll three spacecraft rocketed away within days of one another last July, during an Earth-to-Mars launch window that occurs only every two years. China's first Mars mission, a joint effort with Russia in 2011, never made it past Earth's orbit. 18, to collect rocks for return to Earth-a key step in determining whether life ever existed at Mars.īoth the UAE and China are newcomers at Mars, where more than half of Earth's emissaries have failed. NASA's rover, the cosmic caboose, will arrive on the scene a week later, on Feb. ![]() The United Arab Emirates' orbiter reaches Mars on Tuesday, followed less than 24 hours later by China's orbiter-rover combo.
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