Emirates sets course for distant asteroid belt after Mars and Moon missions
The political authorities of the United Arab Emirates have taken the country's leading role in the international space arena very seriously and have given a new impetus to its contribution to the exploration of the Solar System.
The director general of the UAE Space Agency, Salem Butti Salem al-Qubaisi, has just confirmed the launch of an ambitious interplanetary mission to explore seven cosmic rocky bodies out of the several million that make up the main asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter, between 150 and 375 million kilometres from Earth.
He made the announcement to the 100 or so delegates from countries attending the 66th meeting of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) held a few weeks ago in Vienna, Austria. The Committee is chaired by Omran Sharaf, the Emirati Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation for Science and High Technology.
The scientific purpose of the mission is to open windows to a better understanding of the characteristics, origins, formation and evolution of asteroids, especially those richest in water. The initiative has been named MBR Explorer, in recognition of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Prime Minister of the Emirates and Ruler of Dubai, who has been the inspiration behind the diversification of the country's economy, the driving force behind the National Space Strategy and has stimulated the Emirates' multi-million dollar investment in the space sector.
The MBR Explorer programme will have a duration of 13 years, the first six of which are dedicated to the development and manufacture of the spacecraft. The next seven years correspond to its long journey and subsequent stay in the main asteroid belt beyond Mars and near Jupiter.
Accelerating the growth of the private space sector
Sarah al-Amiri, Minister of State for Public Education and Advanced Technology and also chairperson of the Emirates Space Agency, stresses that the significance of the new interplanetary mission is intended to "create highly skilled jobs for young Emiratis and instil in the younger generation the motto that 'the impossible is possible'".
But MBR Explorer has not only scientific, technological and educational components, but also economic and industrial ones. The intention of the Gulf nation's president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, which has been endorsed by the head of the Emirati Agency's space missions department, Mohsen al-Awadhi, who is also in charge of the mission, is to "accelerate the expansion of the private space sector in our country and expand our technological innovation capabilities".
For this reason, the director general of the Space Agency emphasises that MBR Explorer also wants to generate "strategic partnerships with local private investors, so that they will finance half of the programme and future space projects". A first attempt at public-private cooperation did not reach the optimum level in the failed Rashid lunar rover mission, "but we have tried again with Rashid 2 in 2024".
In order to raise investor interest in the asteroid-bound probe, the space agency has activated the "Space Means Business" initiative. It aims to enable companies based in the country to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the mission to, for example, design and manufacture software and hardware, assemble subsystems, develop solar power panels or contribute technologies to mission management operations.
The MBR Explorer spacecraft is currently in the design phase, but it is already known that it will have an exterior shape similar to that of NASA's Lucy spacecraft, which was launched into orbit on 16 October 2021 to study the so-called "Trojans", asteroids located in the orbit of the gassy planet Jupiter.
On the hunt for seven tiny rocky bodies
Powered by two electric motors, it will have a wingspan of 16.4 meters and a maximum take-off weight of just under 3 tonnes. It will have two circular solar panels, each 7 metres in diameter, similar to Lucy's, which will generate the electricity for four scientific instruments to operate at great distances from the Sun. Their measurements will determine the density, temperature, physical and thermal properties of each asteroid and will be used to extract a better understanding of the Solar System.
Barring any surprises, the launch into space will be carried out by the new Japanese H-3 vector, which has not yet entered service. But there is more than enough time for it to do so, because the H-3 launch window to place the Emirati probe in the path of the asteroid belt will open in early March 2028 and last for three weeks.
These dates in the spring of five years from now are the time period in which the optimal conditions exist to fly over Venus, Earth and Mars and obtain gravity assists from the three planets. Thanks to these aids, the spacecraft will gradually increase its speed and reach the asteroid belt in 2029, but the total distance travelled by the spacecraft will be extended to 5 billion kilometres.
MBR Explorer is to explore seven rocky bodies with a diameter of between 10 and 50 kilometres in this cosmic environment. The final stage will come in 2035 and will consist of reaching the large and mysterious seventh reddish-coloured asteroid, coded 269 Justitia, one of the two with a diameter of half a hundred kilometres.
The Emirati probe will fly over, orbit and study 269 Justitia from a distance of approximately 150 kilometres. MBR Explorer's crowning achievement will be to detach a small robotic object that will land on its surface, which is still under discussion as to whether it will be a surface module or a small vehicle.
The Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder has a special role in the conception, development and manufacture of the spacecraft. Better known as LASP - Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics - which was the main partner institution in making the 1.35-tonne UAE Martian probe Al-Amal, which will be three years in space on 19 July, a reality. The Italian Space Agency, Arizona State University and the University of California, Berkeley are participating in the project and contributing their technology.