UAE’s historic mission to Mars postponed over poor weather
The orbiter is now scheduled to launch from the Japanese island of Tanegashima on Thursday.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has delayed its history-making mission to Mars by two days due to poor weather conditions.
A Japanese H-2A rocket built by Mitsubishi was scheduled to propel the Hope orbiter into outer space on Tuesday (Wednesday local time), but pouring rain forced launch officials in Japan to reschedule.
The spacecraft is now on track to launch from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan on Thursday at 4:43 p.m. EDT, the mission announced on Twitter Tuesday.
The $200 million Emirates Mars Mission, also known as Hope, will spend seven months traveling to Mars before reaching the Red Planet in February 2021. The unmanned spacecraft will then orbit over the planet for an entire Martian year — 687 days — and send atmospheric data back to Earth.
