REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, ABU DHABI -- The UAE Space Agency will participate in the Bahrain International Airshow this Thursday. The Agency will join the Bahraini National Space Science Agency at this year’s event.
Its exhibition will emphasize recent achievements and communicate future goals including plans to become the first Arab country to send a mission to another planet when it launches a probe to Mars in 2020.
Dr Khalifa Al Romaithi, chairman of the UAE Space Agency, said the event was a good opportunity to showcase developments.
“It will also highlight the recognition [the Agency] has received from different international space agencies and organisations in this field,” he said, quoted from the National.
The international airshow will take place in Bahrain’s central region on a purpose built airbase. The three-day event will conclude on Saturday.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, the UAE’s vice-president and Dubai’s ruler, annnounced the Emirates Mars Mission in July 2014 to send Mars probe hurtling on the 60 million km journey in July 2020.
The Hope Mars probe is expected to arrive seven months later, half a century to the year since the founding of the country, a union of seven emirates on the Arabian gulf.
In designing the orbiter, the Emirates Mars Mission deputy project manager and science lead, Sarah Amiri, is expected to collaborate with the University of Colorado, the University of California, Berkeley and the Arizona State University.