In a package for Dubai Tech, CNN meets the team behind the Emirates Mars Mission \u2013 making history as the Arab world\u2019s first interplanetary mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The UAE\u2019s Mars Hope probe aims to capture the most comprehensive picture yet of the Red Planet\u2019s atmosphere. But the team behind it hopes it will have a bigger impact here on Earth. Omran Sharaf, the mission\u2019s project manager explains, \u201cReaching Mars is not the main goal here, it\u2019s a means for a much bigger goal. It\u2019s about the future of our economy, about creating the post-oil economy, a creative, innovative and a competitive economy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The UAE\u2019s space ambitions are part of a push for economic diversification in a country where oil dominates the economy. Sharaf talks about the government\u2019s hopes, \u201cThe UAE government wanted to inspire Emirati youth to go into STEM (Science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and wanted to use this mission as a catalyst for change in multiple sectors, which includes academic sector, industrial sector and economic sector.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even though the probe is still seven months away from reaching Mars, Sharaf tells CNN that the project has already achieved success in the UAE, \u201cSince the mission was announced we\u2019ve seen the impact of the mission at different sectors. We\u2019ve seen universities starting science programs that they didn\u2019t have in the past\u2026 We\u2019ve seen undergraduate students switching majors from finance and international relations to sciences. So, when it comes to the vision itself, we\u2019ve already seen the impact.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fatma Hussain Lootah, manager of the team\u2019s instrument science section, speaks about the mission\u2019s significance, \u201cThis is the golden age of space in the UAE.\u201d She continues, \u201cThis is the time we decided to stand out in maybe a sector nobody expected us to develop in, because it\u2019s knowledge-based, it\u2019s very science-based.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sharaf and the team hope that the mission will provide unprecedented information about Mars\u2019 atmosphere, data that could help scientists understand Earth\u2019s atmosphere, \u201cA better understanding of what happened to Mars, will help us better understand the changes happening on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
READ THE FULL STORY<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\/\u00a0<\/strong>WATCH THE REPORT<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Please Clearly Credit CNN with Any Use of This Material<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In a package for Dubai Tech, CNN meets the team behind the Emirates Mars Mission \u2013 making history as the Arab world\u2019s first interplanetary mission. The UAE\u2019s Mars Hope probe aims to capture the most comprehensive picture yet of the Red Planet\u2019s atmosphere. But the team behind it hopes it will have a bigger impact […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8198,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8197"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8199,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8197\/revisions\/8199"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}