UAE Mars mission again delayed due to weather
The Hope probe is now scheduled to launch Monday from Japan.
The United Arab Emirates' Mars spacecraft is now scheduled to head into space Monday from Japan, Mitsubishi said in a press release.
The Japanese company, which manufactured the spacecraft, said there could be further delays for the historic mission due to weather conditions.
It is the second delay of the launch of the spacecraft, named Hope (Amal), because of weather conditions. The probe was supposed to launch from the island of Tanegashima on Wednesday, but the mission was postponed until Thursday because of poor weather conditions there, and then delayed again.
The mission will be the first of its kind by a country in the Arab world. Hope is to reach Mars’ orbit in February and spend 687 days there studying its properties. The findings will help humans’ understanding of global dust storms in particular, the European Space Agency told the state-run Emirates News Agency.
