UAE Engineers Lead $5 Billion Kilometer Asteroid Mission After Hope Mission

Six years after the launch of the Hope probe, engineers from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are now leading an asteroid mission that will cover a distance of five billion kilometers. Previously, some Emirati engineers who worked on the Hope probe were only mastering the principles of creating and operating the UAE's first interplanetary mission; today, they are leading a spacecraft that will travel nearly ten times farther.

Salem Butti Al Kubaisi, CEO of the UAE Space Agency, told Khaleej Times that specialists who participated in the UAE Mars Mission have returned as program managers, team leads, and project specialists for MBR Explorer. This spacecraft is designed to travel five billion kilometers through the asteroid belt.

Al Kubaisi emphasized the concept of 'institutional knowledge,' noting that young Emirati engineers who participated in the UAE Mars Mission and the Hope Probe project continue to work as leaders and program managers within the new MBR Explorer program. He compared this progress to caring for a palm tree: first, care and watering are required, and then the plant bears fruit.

The importance of this transition lies in the fact that building experience was one of the goals of the Hope mission even before it reached Mars. An independent assessment conducted by the University College London before the UAE Mars Mission launch identified a wide range of developing competencies, including spacecraft project management, risk management, software quality assurance, manufacturing knowledge, scientific potential, and infrastructure.

Researchers also identified a high readiness for future space flights and a mechanism for transferring knowledge from international partners into the UAE. Six years later, MBR Explorer demonstrates what the reuse of this accumulated knowledge looks like.

The UAE's asteroid belt mission is significantly more complex than the flight initiated by Hope in July 2020. The launch of MBR Explorer is scheduled for March 2028, and it will travel approximately five billion kilometers over seven years. The UAE Space Agency notes that this spacecraft will be about twice as long and heavier as Hope.

To change speed and trajectory, it will use gravitational capture maneuvers around Venus, Earth, and Mars before beginning a series of encounters with asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter. The first encounter is expected in February 2030. By 2034, the spacecraft should reach its seventh target, Justitia, where a lander will be dropped to study the asteroid's surface.

The mission will study the origin and evolution of water-rich asteroids, their composition and geological history, as well as the possibility that such bodies could provide resources for future research. MBR Explorer has already passed critical design reviews and moved into assembly, integration, and testing, during which various systems are put together and tested under conditions simulating the space environment.

Al Kubaisi noted that the team was able to start working on the spacecraft design and operational experience that had already been proven by Hope, instead of starting the deep space exploration from scratch. Furthermore, the composition of participants has changed: some people who trained on the Hope program now hold leadership positions in the new project.

The agency has also opened parts of the mission to private sector engineers from the UAE, allowing them to work alongside the mission team and apply the acquired experience in industry. This raises a broader question for the relatively young space economy: what opportunities should the UAE master independently?

Al Kubaisi clearly stated that the answer is not to do absolutely everything. He added that the UAE still lacks its own rocket suppliers or spaceports necessary for sending missions like MBR Explorer into deep space. Therefore, the spacecraft will again rely on Japan for launch. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which launched Hope in 2020, has secured the contract to launch MBR Explorer on Japan's H3 rocket.

The mission also maintains a broad international network of scientific and technical partners, including the Italian Space Agency and US universities. According to Al Kubaisi, national capability is not about possessing everything but about being able to execute specific, important, sovereign tasks that have significant strategic and commercial value.

An example is the flight aboard MBR Explorer itself. The Abu Dhabi Institute of Technology Innovation is leading the development, design, and testing of the lander that will eventually separate from the spacecraft to reach Justitia. This project also provides opportunities for UAE startups, with half of the mission's work distributed among companies based in the UAE.

This is a much more tangible way of building capacity than simply placing a national flag on a spacecraft: engineers and institutions within the country must learn to design equipment that must function millions of kilometers away from immediate human assistance. A similar philosophy applies closer to Earth. The UAE's Sirb program is developing a synthetic aperture satellite constellation that uses radar instead of traditional optical cameras to create images of the Earth's surface.

The goals of this program go beyond simply acquiring satellites. The Space Agency asserts that the program aims to transfer knowledge about SAR payloads and mission development into the UAE, acquire intellectual property that can be commercialized, establish domestic payload development capabilities, and form a local supply chain.

Al Kubaisi explained that the approach begins by identifying gaps in the UAE's space industry supply chain and deciding which ones are important enough to justify funding and technology transfer. This assessment is becoming increasingly significant as the government requires the sector to generate economic returns alongside scientific missions.

Under the UAE's National Space Strategy 2031, the country aims to double the revenues of the space economy and the number of national space companies, increase the sector's added value by 60 percent, and enter the top 10 global space economies. Al Kubaisi described this as a change in how progress itself is measured.

The next stage, he said, is moving 'from measuring success by the number of missions to measuring the broader contribution of space to the national economy.' This means that missions like Hope and MBR Explorer carry two types of expectations. One is scientific: Hope provided data on the Martian atmosphere for researchers worldwide, and MBR Explorer is intended to complement scientists' knowledge about some of the oldest bodies in the Solar System. The other is what remains in the UAE after the spacecraft leaves. Engineers, software, intellectual property, companies, assets, and the ability to take responsibility for increasingly complex parts of the mission are now included in this calculation.

International partnership remains a central element of this model. Al Kubaisi's argument is that collaboration should not be confused with stagnation. The UAE can continue to use a Japanese rocket while taking responsibility for other levels of the mission that previously required greater external support. MBR Explorer still has almost two years of assembly and testing before the planned launch window, followed by a multi-year journey to the final asteroid. The spacecraft itself will serve as a measure of the mission's success, and according to the experienced space program leader, the people who create it will provide another measure.

Six years after Hope left Earth, some Emirati engineers who learned to execute the country's first interplanetary mission are now responsible for implementing its most complex mission.

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olhardigital.com.brSeptember 3, 23:49

Project plans to launch a space probe for 800 years: historical breakthrough or technological illusion?

A small spacecraft could be launched toward Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to the Sun, on a journey that would take about 80 thousand years. The proposal, named Fermi Explorer, intends to use existing technologies to demonstrate the possibility of an interstellar mission, even a very slow one, without relying on futuristic propulsion systems or billion-dollar investments.

This idea was presented on Tuesday (1) by mathematician and physicist from the UK, Philip Johnston, and other entrepreneurs. The group plans to raise $15 million (about 76.6 million Brazilian reais) to build a probe with a payload of only 1 kg and attempt to launch it in 2029. Instead of aiming for a fast arrival, the project is betting on a low-cost strategy for placing the spacecraft on a path to another star.

Discussion of Mission Goals

In an interview with Olhar Digital, Roberto Dias da Costa, Associate Professor at the Department of Astronomy at IAG-USP and director of CienTec, explained that the mission's goal is not an isolated star like our Sun. He clarified that Alpha Centauri is a triple system consisting of two stars very similar to the Sun, named Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, and one red dwarf known as Proxima Centauri, which is significantly smaller.

According to the astronomer, the two larger stars are separated by 23 astronomical units (AU), equivalent to the distance between the Sun and the planet Uranus, and are located 4.36 light-years from Earth. The third star orbits this pair at a much greater distance, being the closest to our planet. 'Proxima is significantly farther from the pair, currently about 12 thousand AU away from them, and is located 4.24 light-years from us, making it slightly closer.'

Despite being our nearest stellar neighbor, the distance is so vast that a conventional ship would take thousands of years to cover the journey. Fermi Explorer will travel at a speed of approximately 25 km/s, which is enough to escape the Solar System but too little compared to the distances between stars. As a result, the journey will take about 79,800 years.

This means that if the mission is launched in 2029 and completes its route, arrival will occur around 81,829! None of the project participants will be alive to see the result. In fact, thousands of generations will pass between launch and arrival. Thus, the spacecraft will function as a kind of technological capsule sent into such a distant future that the modern world will be unrecognizable.

Acceleration Mechanism

The challenge begins long before the probe leaves the Solar System. Fermi Explorer will first be launched into a low Earth orbit, likely as part of a joint launch mission. Then, a long series of maneuvers around the Sun will begin. Instead of simply directing the craft toward Alpha Centauri, the developers intend to use the star itself as part of the mechanism to accelerate the probe.

For over ten years, the probe will execute carefully calculated orbits, gradually approaching the Sun. The point of closest approach may reach 0.42 astronomical units, or about 62.9 million kilometers, which is slightly less than half the average distance between the Earth and the Sun. In this region, solar radiation is much more intense, allowing panels to generate more energy to power an electric propulsion system.

The team plans to combine these close passes of the Sun with the so-called Oberth effect, a phenomenon that allows for better utilization of engine thrust when the spacecraft is moving at high speed. Multiple such maneuvers, called 'perihelion boosting,' will gradually increase the probe's speed until it can finally leave the Solar System.

However, according to Costa, the strategy adopted by the private group does not represent a major aerospace breakthrough. 'They say it is a technology test, but I believe it will only serve as a check of the 'elastic band effect,' which involves placing the probe in an orbit that allows it to pass close to a very massive body, in this case the Sun, and thus gain speed. But this is in no way new; many probes have already used this technique.'

According to an 81-page technical assessment prepared with the help of artificial intelligence, this solar acceleration process could take about 12 years. After this, Fermi Explorer will continue moving almost purely by inertia toward Alpha Centauri. A speed of about 25 km/s will be sufficient to start the journey, but not to make it fast. Most of the 80 thousand years will be spent in deep interstellar space.

The mission is not intended to carry people or even a large number of scientific instruments. The priority is to test whether a very small spacecraft can undertake such a journey using relatively simple components. Nevertheless, without active propulsion after the initial phase, the astronomer from IAG-USP emphasizes the problem of trajectory accuracy. 'Since this hypothetical probe has no directional control and will move only by inertia, I believe it is impossible to 'accurately target' one of the three stars in the system.'

After the initial stages, communication will become an issue. Direct contact will last about 18 months, while reflectors will help ground telescopes track the craft for some time. However, once it crosses Jupiter's region, Fermi Explorer will become increasingly difficult to detect, silently advancing for tens of thousands of years. There will be no team waiting for arrival, and there will be no rescue mission. The probe's fate will be to continue its trajectory until reaching the Alpha Centauri system.

Additional Remarks

Signal loss at such an early stage is one of the most criticized aspects by experts. 'If they themselves say they will lose the ability to track the probe when it is about the distance of Jupiter, then anything beyond that will just be speculation. Note that Voyager 1 and 2 were launched in 1977 and are still operating! They are now more than 150 times farther from the Sun than Earth! Jupiter is only 5 times farther from the Sun than us,' analyzes Costa.

As unlikely as it may seem, the 80,000-year journey has a purpose that goes beyond simply reaching another star. Johnston links the project to the Fermi paradox, which questions why, despite the vast number of existing stars and planets, we have yet to find convincing evidence of other civilizations. One possible reason is that interstellar travel is too complex for any form of life.

Fermi Explorer would be a way to test exactly this hypothesis. If a technological civilization can send a small spacecraft to another star using relatively modest resources, even if it takes tens of thousands of years to arrive, one of the potential obstacles of the paradox weakens. The mission would also leave a message for the extremely distant future: humanity was able, at least, to attempt to cross the space between stars.

The project is still far from guaranteed realization. The team needs to secure funding, build the spacecraft, find a suitable launch, and execute a complex sequence of maneuvers. Even if all these stages are completed, the mission will remain a bet with an almost incomprehensible timeframe.