Which UAE spacecraft entered orbit around Mars in February 2021? Hope. The spacecraft is officially called the Emirates Mars Mission spacecraft, or Al Amal, meaning “Hope” in Arabic.
Hope entered orbit around Mars on February 9, 2021, making the United Arab Emirates the fifth entity to reach Mars orbit after the Soviet Union, the United States, Europe, and India. The mission launched from Tanegashima, Japan, on July 19, 2020, aboard a Mitsubishi H-IIA rocket.
Its primary scientific goal is to study the Martian atmosphere as a connected system. Hope observes how atmospheric conditions change through the day and across seasons, including the movement of dust, hydrogen, and oxygen into space. Its orbit gives it broad views of Mars rather than concentrating only on one local region.
The mission was developed by the UAE Space Agency and the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre with international university partners. Hayabusa2, Akatsuki, and BepiColombo are real spacecraft, but they belong to missions focused on asteroids, Venus, and Mercury rather than the UAE’s Mars program.