SARA ALZAABI (ABU DHABI)
The first UAE-built probe for the Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt (EMA) is embarking on a five-billion kilometre journey that will span eight years before reaching 269 Justitia, one of the reddest asteroids ever observed in the main asteroid belt and one that no mission has previously visited.
In a historic milestone, the mission scheduled to launch in 2028, will fly by six asteroids and two planets before making a landmark landing on the seventh asteroid, Justitia.
The EMA and the Technology Innovation Institute (TII) unveiled the completed, UAE-built probe in a recent press conference.
The event outlined the mission’s development and scientific objectives ahead of the probe’s departure to Colorado, US, for integration with the MBR Explorer.
The EMA is the UAE’s second interplanetary mission and the first with a spacecraft designed, engineered, assembled, and tested in the country.
The MBR Explorer, scheduled to launch from Japan in March 2028, will travel using gravity assists at Venus, Earth and Mars.
It will image two planets and seven asteroids, flying past six before reaching 269 Justitia in 2036.
At Justitia, the probe will separate from the spacecraft, descend autonomously, and make contact with the asteroid’s surface.
It will capture close-range images and excavate the surface to study material beneath its upper layer.
If successful, Justitia will become only the seventh asteroid in history to be reached on the surface by a probe.
As the mission’s only deployable payload, the probe is designed to operate without commands from Earth after launch.
The probe is designed bulit and tested end-to-end in the UAE by TII’s Propulsion and Space Research Cenre, in collaboration with the UAE Space Agency, HEX20, Khalifa University and UAE University’s National Space and Technology Centre.
The programme also involves 20 UAE engineers, helping build national expertise in deep-space missions and autonomous space technologies.
Aletihad spoke to experts behind the mission about its science, technology, and the national capabilities it is helping to develop.
Dr Anton Ivanov, the Executive Director – Space at the Technology Innovation Institute’s Propulsion and Space Research Center (PSRC), where he leads the team that designed, built and tested the probe for the Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt, said the Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt goes beyond exploring six asteroids and reaching a seventh, with a major focus on building long-term space capabilities in the UAE.
“The main purpose of the whole project is actually beyond the spacecraft,” he said.
“We are building the spacecraft systems engineering capability in the UAE,” which can later be applied to communications, remote sensing and other space technologies.
A key part of this effort is developing Emirati expertise.
“One of the most important things that we’re doing is building the national team here,” he said, describing Emirati engineers working across mechanical, electrical, propulsion and other specialties.
“This mission is the first interplanetary spacecraft built entirely here in the UAE,” Dr Ivanov said. “We built, designed and tested everything here.”
He added that this gives the country greater ownership of its space capabilities and supply chain.
“This is the first interplanetary mission done here in the UAE and we are very proud of that.”
Mariam Alhammadi, a researcher at the Technology Innovation Institute’s Propulsion and Space Research Center in Abu Dhabi, specialising in electric propulsion and spacecraft propulsion systems, and an Electric Propulsion Engineer for the Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt, said:
“The Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt is centred around the main spacecraft MBR Explorer which will launch in 2028,” she said.
At Justitia, a UAE-built probe will separate from the spacecraft and head towards the surface.
“We have a probe that was fully made in the UAE,” Alhammadi said.
“The idea behind it is that we know it will not survive. We will be taking images and sending them back to the main spacecraft.”
She said the mission combines scientific discovery with building national expertise.
“We will know more information about the formation of the galaxy by knowing more information about all these different asteroids. And that's how science benefits from missions like this. At the same time, what is really important is the capability that we have built here in the UAE by undretaking missions as complex as this.”
She said the national team behind the MBR Explorer was proud to reach the latest milestone as work on the probe nears completion.
“So as the national team working on the main MBR Explorer, we are really proud for this moment today, marking the finishing steps of the probe that will be attached on the main spacecraft.”