Emirates Mars Mission project director shares his personal, professional insights
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See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
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#UAEnews #Mars #SpaceMission
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NewsTranscript
00:00We announce the success of the arrival of the UAE in the Red Ship Circuit.
00:30Being proud that we reached that point.
00:32After we successfully arrived, that load, or that kind of stress, went away.
00:37For the first few minutes, I was still in shock, actually.
00:40The past seven years, like, really passed really fast.
00:42I mean, I literally saw it in front of me, like, pass in front of me in a second.
00:48At that moment, I remembered, like, I was just remembering all these different kind of challenges
00:54that the team had to go through to be able to reach this point.
00:57The support that we received from the leadership throughout this journey,
01:00it just took me a while to actually realize that.
01:02But it was a good feeling.
01:03Receiving the first image was very positive.
01:06Reaching Mars was a big news for us.
01:09But then, getting the first photo was kind of a proof for us, like, as a team,
01:15a stamp of completing this phase successfully of reaching Mars.
01:20The nice thing about this photo, which was taken at an altitude of 25,000 kilometers above Mars' surface,
01:26we processed the image in a way for it to look how we would see it as humans
01:32if we were actually at the height of 25,000 kilometers above Mars.
01:36That's how we would see it with our naked eyes.
01:38The reason why the UAE was able to reach Mars in such a short time frame, which is not usual,
01:43and also with a very small budget, relatively speaking, it's because of international collaboration.
01:47As I was announced by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, 450 people worked on this mission.
01:53From those 450 people, 200 Emiratis, 150 are from our academic partners,
01:59University of Colorado, our main partners, Arizona State University, and University of California, Berkeley.
02:04Also about 100 subcontractors.
02:06If this mission proved something, it proved that the importance of collaboration,
02:10the direction of the UAE government to us the first day that they met us and gave us a direction was,
02:14don't start from scratch, start where others ended, collaborate with others, work with others.
02:19So in missions like this, if you want to deliver ambitious missions like this,
02:22in a cost-effective way, in an efficient way, collaboration is critical to that.
02:26I really hope that this mission brought a lot of lessons learned
02:30that we could share and would like to share with other Arab nations and countries
02:34and work with them hopefully, not just regionally, but also internationally with other nations
02:38to be able to take on much more ambitious projects and bigger projects
02:42that will benefit humanity and us as a region and us as a nation also.
02:47This mission was an excellent learning experience for me.
02:51It exposed me to different kind of things.
02:54It's not just technical challenges, administrative challenges, political challenges.
02:58And the fact that the government expected us as a team to create impact in different sectors,
03:04that's something that's quite unique to this mission.
03:06Other missions similar to this don't have to deal with that.
03:09In our case, we had to because, as the government announced before,
03:12that going to Mars is not the goal, it's a need for a much bigger objective.
03:15And that kind of experience is extremely valuable and it's very difficult to put a price tag on it, to be honest.
03:22One nice thing about the UAE is that it brings opportunity.
03:26Regardless of what your age group is, there is opportunity.
03:29And I would really like to see other people, other young Emiratis and other young Arabs
03:34who go through similar journeys, have such ambitious projects with difficult requirements
03:39that really pushes you out of your comfort zone.
03:41And that's the only time you actually learn.
03:43If you want to be competitive, if you want to be creative and innovative, you need to be out of your comfort zone.
03:48And a mission like this definitely pushed me and the whole team out of our comfort zone.
03:52I am confident that similar opportunities will be there for Emirati youth, much more and bigger projects.
03:58At the same time, I would really like to see other Arab youth go through similar experiences
04:03and get pushed out of their comfort zone and see them also help in building this region and bring us all closer together.
04:10Currently, reaching Mars is just 50% of the mission.
04:14There is another 50% left now, in which we have to actually deliver the science, find new discoveries,
04:19share the data with the rest of the world and bring something back to humanity from this mission.
04:23The mission itself, from the government expectation, as was mentioned by the Prime Minister,
04:28is that it achieved more than 90% of the requirements that the government set.
04:34It's linked to the impact that they want to see.
04:36That, for us as a team, showed us the support that we have from the government,
04:41the level the government has confidence in the work of our team members,
04:45and the mentality or that mindset that we have in the UAE, within the leadership,
04:49is that failure is an option, regardless of what the outcome was.
04:53For us, whatever you did is successful, before even reaching Mars.
04:58However, we have the remaining 10%, which is basically around the science work that we need to be doing.
05:05For us, as a mission, that's 50%.
05:07Because we need to reach either the extended mission, or hopefully after the extended mission,
05:12the mission termination, to be able to reach that.
05:14Currently, we are in our capture orbit.
05:16So, for the next two months or less, we'll basically be preparing the spacecraft
05:21by calibrating the science instruments and making sure that the data that we'll be collecting,
05:25once we are in the science orbit, is up to the quality that scientists would have
05:31or meets their expectations and requirements to be able to do actual proper analysis of the Martian atmosphere.
05:36Also, we're preparing for the maneuvers that we have to conduct to transition into our science orbit.
05:42Currently, as per the plans, we plan to have three maneuvers to transition to the science orbit.
05:48As a UAE, we are focused on the mission. There's a lot of work needs to be done.
05:51UAE is an ambitious nation. We always have plans for the future.
05:54The mission we have ahead of us is quite difficult and challenging, and we're focusing on that.
05:57At the right time, we will definitely announce what's next.
06:01NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology