KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 5 (Bernama) — The Technology Innovation Institute (TII) has revealed the United Arab Emirates (UAE)-built probe for the Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt (EMA).
In a statement, TII said the probe will soon travel to Colorado, United States, for final integration with the MBR Explorer spacecraft ahead of its planned 2028 launch.
In a historic first, TII’s probe will image two planets and seven asteroids — flying past six asteroids in the main belt before culminating in a rendezvous with and landing on the seventh, 269 Justitia. If successful, the landing will make Justitia only the seventh asteroid in history to be reached on the surface by the probe.
“Our teams at TII have developed a system designed to withstand extreme conditions, operate with exceptional precision, and deliver meaningful science billions of kilometres from Earth.
“The mission reflects not only the calibre of our talent, but also the depth of scientific and engineering capability the UAE has built to contribute to some of the world’s most ambitious space missions,” said TII Chief Executive Officer, Dr Najwa Aaraj in a statement.
Designed, built and tested end-to-end in Abu Dhabi by TII’s Propulsion and Space Research Center, in collaboration with the UAE Space Agency, HEX20, Khalifa University and UAE University’s National Space Science and Technology Center, the TII-built probe is the mission’s only deployable payload.
It will separate from MBR Explorer to make contact with Justitia’s surface at the furthest point of the mission and operate fully autonomously in deep space, capturing close-range images and excavating the asteroid’s surface to provide new insights into its composition and physical characteristics.
The MBR Explorer spacecraft will travel approximately five billion kilometres over eight years, using gravity-assist manoeuvres at Venus, Earth and Mars, and conducting close encounters with six asteroids before arriving at 269 Justitia.
TII said the spacecraft is scheduled to launch from Japan in March 2028 within a narrow three-week launch window aligned to interplanetary conditions. On arrival, the MBR spacecraft will spend approximately seven months in orbit around Justitia, beginning at 250 kilometres and descending through a series of lower orbits.
The probe will deploy during a low-altitude pass in early 2036, then descend and make contact with the surface, imaging continuously and transmitting to the spacecraft above. The subsequent images will allow scientists to study material beneath the surface layer that cannot be characterised from orbit.
— BERNAMA
