Emirates Mars Mission

The Emirates Mars Mission uses the Hope orbiter to study connections between Mars’ lower atmosphere, weather and the escape of atmospheric gases. Its high elliptical orbit enables observations across the planet and over different local times and seasons. MBRSC developed the spacecraft with academic partners including the University of Colorado Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Arizona State University and the University of California, Berkeley. Hope carries the EXI imager, EMIRS infrared spectrometer and EMUS ultraviolet spectrometer. In 2023, an orbital adjustment enabled repeated Deimos flybys while retaining planet-wide atmospheric observations. The mission reported imaging, ultraviolet and thermal-infrared measurements of the moon, including previously little-studied far-side regions, with close approaches of about 100 km. Early spectral results favoured a planetary origin over a captured D-type asteroid interpretation; the moons’ origins remain an open scientific question.