To make that happen, Al Awadhi and his wife, among others, moved to Boulder in 2015 and stayed until 2020. “We want to lead a mission that is unique and that is actually contributing to the scientific community.” “We’re not just doing this to say we’re doing this,” Al Awadhi said. But several years later, he jumped at the opportunity to get involved in EMM-in large part because he knew that the UAE was seeking to build a sustainable space program that would inspire Arab youth and engage in the worldwide space science community. When he graduated from college in 2010, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to use his skills to explore outer space. “That showed the hard work of the team-that they made this critical event feel so easy.”Īl Awadhi had a long road to get to this point. “I wasn’t sure if we were done because it was so easy,” said Al Awadhi, who’s the mission systems engineer for EMM. When the maneuver was successful and the control room burst into cheers, Al Awadhi remembers feeling “confused.” The feat wasn’t easy-to swing itself into orbit around Mars, the spacecraft had to burn its thrusters for nearly 30 minutes, slowing its speed down from about 75,000 to 11,000 miles per hour. He was sitting at a computer screen in the Mission Operations Center at the MBRSC in Dubai when Hope began what engineers call a Mars orbit insertion maneuver. Mohsen Mohammed Al Awadhi had a close eye on the product of that collaboration on Feb. science team for EMM put it, “science doesn’t like international boundaries.” Making it look easy “This sort of mission is like a primordial soup for innovation where you have all these diverse minds working together,” Alsaeed said.Īs David Brain, a professor at LASP who leads the U.S.

The mission is being led by the MBRSC and includes a group of knowledge partners and experts from around the world-including at LASP, Arizona State University, the University of California, Berkeley and Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. In the process, these researchers learned the ins and outs of planetary science and aerospace engineering-from how carbon dioxide falls as snow over the Martian poles to how to design a propellant tank that can carry enough fuel to put a spacecraft into orbit around Mars. She and her compatriots from the UAE, in turn, have taught their American friends about the central role that hospitality plays in Arabic-speaking countries. There was plenty of cultural exchange: Alsaeed has loved hiking in the mountains (but didn’t enjoy this year’s cold and snowy weather). Over five years, many of them developed, built, and tested the Hope probe and laid out its scientific goals working in collaboration with engineers and scientists at LASP. It was also a gift that was only possible because of international collaboration.īeginning in 2015, Alsaeed joined dozens of other young researchers and engineers from the MBRSC who traveled to the foot of the Rocky Mountains in Boulder. You could see the clouds around the North and South poles.” You could see the dust lifting off the surface.

“The photo captured everything that EMM is going to study. “It was the best Valentine’s Day gift ever,” said Alsaeed, who grew up in Dubai in the UAE. (Credit: MBRSC/UAE Space Agency/CU-LASP/EMM-EXI) Olympus Mons is the circular structure just above the shadow.

The Emirates Mars Mission's first image of the red planet.

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