Emirates Spacecraft to Study Venus, Grab Sample From Asteroid

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES — After studying Mars’ atmosphere with its first space probe, the United Arab Emirates now plans to send a second probe to study one hot planet and seven asteroids before landing on an asteroid.

Here are the details: CNBC reports that the United Arab Emirates has announced it will send another probe into space, this time to study Venus and the solar system’s main asteroid belt.

The announcement comes as the Emirates’ Hope Probe is studying Mars’ atmosphere from orbit, after arriving in Mars orbit in February 2021.

According to the UAE, the new probe will launch in 2028 and head to Venus, where it will use a heat shield to orbit close to the hot planet and study it.

After studying Venus, the probe will return to Earth, circling the mother planet a few times to pick up enough speed to slingshot out to the solar system’s main asteroid belt, situated between Mars and Jupiter.

When it reaches the asteroid belt, it will closely observe seven asteroids before landing on one of them and collecting a sample before it returns to Earth.

If it can do all that, the UAE would become only the fourth nation to land a spacecraft on an asteroid.

If all goes to plan, the probe will travel a total of 2.2 billion miles, or 3.6 billion kilometers.

As with the UAE’s Martian probe, the Emirates will again work closely with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado to build and control the new probe.