UAE eyes "first Arab unmanned probe" to Mars by 2021

[Toramana]

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-05/25/c_134268945.htm

ABU DHABI, May 25 (Xinhua) -- The United Arab Emirates on Monday kicked off a strategic framework for its newly founded space agency that aims to launch satellite missions and the "first Arab unmanned probe" to Mars by 2021.

The launch of the strategy comes ahead of a two-day Gulf Space and Satellite Forum, which starts here on Monday.

The UAE agency has scheduled total direct investments of 20 billion dirham (5.45 billion U.S. dollars).

Setting up the Gulf Arab state's official body to explore the orbit was in line with the government's policy to invest in talent and science, to diversify the economy and to boost research and innovation in the UAE, a major oil supplier, the agency's officials said.

Having already sent two satellites into space, the UAE plans to send the third home-made satellite, Khalifa Sat, named after President Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, by 2017.

The UAE's first observation satellite was brought into space in July 2009.

The UAE space agency, based in Abu Dhabim works closely with the Mohammed Bin Rashid Center in Dubai, which was launched in April this year.

A strategic objective of the agency is to establish a space facility in the UAE desert from where vehicles carrying satellites and probes could be launched into orbit.

[Toramana]

http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/united-arab-emirates-to-attempt-mars-mission-in-2020-1.2389330

Published Monday, May 25, 2015 7:22AM EDT
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates -- The United Arab Emirates on Monday laid out a strategic framework for a newly created space agency that aims to integrate various arms of the Gulf federation's burgeoning space industry.
The seven-state federation, perhaps best known for its oil wealth and extravagant attractions like Dubai's Palm-shaped islands and record-breaking Burj Khalifa skyscraper, is fast establishing itself as the Arab world's leader in the space sector.
The UAE Space Agency, created last year by presidential decree, aims to regulate and support the country's space sector, which includes existing Earth-orbiting satellite programs and plans for a mission to Mars in 2020.
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Agency Chairman Khalifa Mohammed Thani al-Rumaithi said the space industry will help diversify the country's economy and create highly skilled jobs for a growing youth population.
"The United Arab Emirates is seeking to confirm its status as a spacefaring nation in which the industry plays a key role in sustainable economic development," he told a gathering at an event rolling out the federal body in the capital, Abu Dhabi, that featured models of existing Emirati satellites and waiters serving space-themed canapés including hummus in metal squeeze tubes.
Space technology is one of several high-tech industries the OPEC member nation is championing as a way to create jobs and diversify an economy still heavily dependent on oil.
Thuraya, an Emirates-based satellite phone operator, was responsible for the country's first commercial satellite, launched in 2000.
The Emirates' first government-backed satellite, an Earth-observation satellite known as DubaiSat-1, blasted into orbit atop a Russian rocket launched from Kazakhstan in 2009. It and the follow-up DubaiSat-2 were collaborations between Emirati engineers and a South Korean satellite firm.
Abu Dhabi's Al Yah Satellite Communications Co., better known as Yahsat, hopes to put its third satellite into orbit in 2016. Its first communications satellite was launched aboard an Arianespace rocket from French Guiana in 2011.
The announcement comes less than three weeks after the Dubai-based team behind a 2020 mission to Mars announced that its probe will circle the planet studying its atmosphere, including changes over time and how surface features such as volcanoes, deserts and canyons affect it.
Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said earlier this month that he hoped that probe, named "Hope," will provide inspiration for the Arab world. It is the first Mars mission being attempted by any Arab country.
Some 75 Emirati engineers are currently working on the Mars project, and officials hope to double that number by 2020.
Aabar Investments, which is backed by the Abu Dhabi government, is a key investor in Richard Branson's space tourism company, Virgin Galactic.
It agreed to pump $280 million into the space startup in 2009 in exchange for a third of the company, and later raised its stake to 38 percent after agreeing to additional funding for the development of a satellite launch program. Its initial deal called for the development of a spaceport in Abu Dhabi.
Virgin Galactic's plans are now uncertain after its experimental rocket ship, SpaceShipTwo, broke apart in flight over California's Mojave Desert in November

[Toramana]

Those are the things Muslims should be doing instead of Akhwanism, Talebanism, and other fanatic things that Barakzai is deeply embroiled into.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Those are the things Muslims should be doing instead of Akhwanism, Talebanism, and other fanatic things that Barakzai is deeply embroiled into.

These are things washed up Marxists like Toramana derived from minority groupings should do instead of being bellwether sycophants to all comers/invaders who help them usurp the majority's rights and damage their livers with liquor and instead of being party politicians without practical skills clothed in a thin veneer of flowery rhetoric and oratory with an abysmal deed do word ratio!

[Da Bannu Mazdigar]

OMG,more than 5Billion dollars worth project.

India invested less than 100Million dollars in its mars mission