Countdown is on for UAE's Hope Mission to Mars

The countdown to sending the Hope Probe to Mars has begun.

The UAE mission to Mars is set to launch this time next year and is expected to reach the orbit of the Red Planet by the first quarter of 2021.

The Hope Probe is 'confirmation to the whole world that the UAE has entered the global space exploration race', according to Dr. Ahmad Belhoul Al Falasi, Chairman of the UAE Space Agency. 

Al Mansoori says the legacy of the mission will be the knowledge that is passed to Emirati youth, which will cement the UAE's future in the space sector. 

The probe will collect more than 1,000 gigabytes of new data from the Red Planet.

This information will be stored and analysed in a scientific datacenter here in the UAE.

Hope's international research team includes 10 Emiratis who will take the first global picture of Mars, and steer the first Arab project to explore another planet.

The UAE is on track to join an esteemed group of only nine nations to successfully run a Mars mission.