Tag: Mars

  • Tianwen 1 – China’s Maiden journey to Mars

    Tianwen-1 is the Chinese spacecraft that went into orbit around Mars on February 10, 2021. There was not going to be a live coverage of the event. Andrew Jones, a journalist tracking the Chinese space program tweeted that AMSAT-DL is covering the event on radio. This is where I followed the event.

    Radio output from Tianwen-1 after it emerged from behind Mars. Photo is a screenshot of the AMSAT-DL YouTube live feed

    The spacecraft re-emerged from behind Mars. I captured the image above from the live webcast. From the expected time being as expected, it was judged that the spacecraft had reached Mars orbit. Confirmation came from Chinese CCTV4 stating that the orbiter had reached orbit.

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  • Hope – UAE’s Maiden journey to Mars

    I had the chance to follow the United Arab Emirate (UAE)’s Hope mission to Mars on YouTube and Twitter. I followed the YouTube stream of Dubai One. On Twitter, I followed the official Twitter account of Hope and Sarwat Nasir, a journalist with The National, a UAE based newspaper.

    The Hope (Al-Amal) was designed, developed and controlled from the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) in Dubai, UAE. It was built by MBRSC with 3 universities in the United States of America (USA), University of Colorado, Boulder, University of California, Berkely and Arizona State University. It was launched on 19 July, 2020 on Japan’s H-IIA launch vehicle. The UAE hopes to setup a human settlement on Mars by 2117.

    The UAE went all in with the promotion of the mission.

    Besides these promotions, they did a good job with a light show on the Burj Khalifa in the run up to the Mars Orbit Insertion. My favourite part of the show was the slice of Mars shown on the Burj. The light show showed the Emirati scientists involved in the program. They spoke to some of the personnel that worked on the mission. News was shared that more than 37% of their personnel were women. The average age of the personnel was 27.

    The first acquisition of signal was at the Deep Space Network at Madrid. As we waited for Hope to emerge from behind Mars, the tension that scientists faced was similar to the tension that would have been faced at any space center anywhere in the world. On display, was a very basic human emotion. Waiting for the results of a mission that one has worked so hard on.

    With the mission success, UAE became the 5th country or country group at Mars along with the United States of America, Europe, Russia and India.