The United Arab Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt is ambitious. EMA will fly past six asteroids and rendezvous with a seventh, Justitia.
Equally ambitious is EMA’s national goal. To strengthen the Emirates’ private space sector, greater than half the work will likely be performed by UAE corporations.
Spearheading the EMA is Director Hoor Al Mazmi, who joined the UAE Space Agency in 2017 as an area science researcher. Al Mazmi earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Virginia Commonwealth University and a master’s in aerospace engineering from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Al Mazmi spoke with concerning the goals, challenges and importance of the EMA.
What are your overall goals?
Crucial goals for this mission, for the UAE, are to develop capabilities in space science and engineering through the partnerships and to permit private corporations within the UAE to develop their capabilities and test out their systems and their knowledge to be able to be competitive globally.
Why is that this mission essential overall?
Now we have each science and space resource objectives. The science objective is to grasp the origin and evolution of water-rich asteroids. This is essential because this will tell us more about how we have now water on Earth and where that water got here from. There’s a theory that water got here from an asteroid impact. Going to the essential asteroid belt can tell us more concerning the origin of water for all terrestrial planets.
The various set of asteroids that we’re visiting will give us more information concerning the water content of those asteroids. We are going to rendezvous with Justitia, which is a very powerful asteroid, scientifically, since it’s theorized that it migrated from the primordial Kuiper Belt.
What are your goals for the UAE space sector?
An enormous focus for the UAE Space Agency for the past couple of years was to develop the space private sector within the UAE. We’re using this mission as a method to develop the capabilities of startups and space corporations inside the UAE.
We’re doing that through the lander. When our spacecraft reaches Justitia, it would deploy a lander on its surface. That lander will likely be handled by the private sector within the UAE.
Has the UAE already chosen the lander builders?
Now we have two private corporations which can be involved with this project and we’ll have more in the long run. Currently, we have now 971Space and Sadeen Space working on this. They’re each startups.
What’s the schedule for this mission?
The launch is planned for 2028. Now we have a Venus gravity assist, then also a Mars gravity assist and an Earth gravity assist before we get to our first asteroids. Then, we’ll be flying by six asteroids and rendezvousing with Justitia by 2034.
What’s probably the most difficult a part of all of this?
From my perspective, probably the most complicated part is the navigation. Not being sure exactly where these asteroids are in space, having the ability to goal them and fly by them, and have our instruments get the signs that we want. That’s going to be difficult, but we have now a capable team working on the navigation system. Then, rendezvousing with Justitia and never missing it is usually a difficult part.
The opposite challenge could be to get as many individuals as we are able to involved. The essential point of the mission is to develop capabilities and to get knowledge to the UAE and to construct on the capabilities that were developed from the Emirates Mars Mission.
If any person shouldn’t be within the space sector, why would they care about water-rich asteroids?
Water is essential for everybody. And our space-resources goals are going to enable future missions to get further within the solar system. Achieving our objectives of understanding find out how to get resources from asteroids within the essential asteroid belt will allow future missions and humanity as a complete to advance further in our space exploration journey – to get further inside the solar system and hopefully outside of the solar system. That’s the large objective. But then also, to get a greater understanding of our solar system as a complete, the way it evolved and the way it became what it’s that we see today.
Are you referring to getting water from asteroids for future missions?
Yes, that’s correct. That’s the start of the study for a way we are able to potentially do this. Those are our space resource objectives. We won’t necessarily have the opportunity to try this at this point.
Are all of the asteroids that you simply chosen water-rich asteroids?
Because they’re that diverse set of asteroids, they’re going to have different asteroid types and they’ll have various amounts of water in them. Justitia is the one which’s probably to have water ice underneath the surface due to its redness. Based on our understanding of the forms of asteroids that we’re visiting, they’ve a possible for having water on them at various amounts, but they wouldn’t necessarily all be water-rich.
Did you choose the seven because they supply a various range of asteroids?
Yes. Chimaera, for instance, is the most important asteroid of its family. That might provide us with a number of information concerning the Chimaera family as a complete within the asteroid belt. We even have Rockox, which is considered a mixture of asteroid types.
They’re all interesting in their very own way. A few of them were chosen because they’re easy targets along the best way, and it will be interesting for us to take a look at them. The essential reason for selecting asteroids which can be a part of asteroid families is because they’ll give us insights on the families as a complete.
What do you’re thinking that goes to be the impact of this mission for future science and technology research?
The asteroid community is worked up about this mission and enthusiastic about what it will mean for us to go to Justitia and understand why it’s so red and whether or not its origin is the Kuiper Belt. There are theories of all objects within the essential asteroid belt coming from elsewhere. That might change the basics of planetary science and the understanding of the asteroid belt and where these asteroids got here from and their diversity.
How will EMA be essential within the long term?
EMA has put together a national team for the UAE that comes from different entities which can be all working together to attain this mission. Now we have engineers and scientists – people from different entities all working together on this mission to attain it.
That can provide us a structure for future exploration missions. Especially since this can be a capability development mission. We’ll learn loads about how complicated missions like this might be successful and the way people can work together from different countries and different entities to attain something so complicated.