The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is expanding its space footprint with plans to launch a probe to the further reaches of the solar system.
The MBR Explorer, which is set to launch in March 2028, will visit seven different asteroids in the main asteroid belt, which lies between Mars and Jupiter. The spacecraft, which is designed to be fully autonomous, will first perform a flyby of Venus in mid-2028 and a flyby of Earth in spring 2029 to put it on course to the asteroid belt.
One at the main belt, the spacecraft will visit asteroids 10253 Westerwald, 623 Chimaera, 13294 Rockox—then a flyby of Mars—before visiting 88055 Ghaf, 23871 Ousha and 59980 Moza. The final destination, expected to be reached in 2034, is 269 Justitia, an asteroid in the middle main asteroid belt, some 200 million miles from Earth.
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Once there, the MBR Explorer will orbit 269 Justitia for seven months before releasing a lander that will attempt to touch down on the space rock to analyze its composition. The asteroid is believed to have formed in the Kuiper Belt, beyond the orbit of Neptune, and could offer clues as to how water and other organic materials were distributed in the early solar system as the planets began to form.
The UAE is among the nations jockeying to carve out room in the space race between the U.S. and China. In 2020, for example, the country launched a probe that entered orbit around Mars in 2021.
The expansion of its space program is also reflective of the country’s desire to be less reliant on fossil fuels, which are the UAE’s largest export.
On Sunday royal family member Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, defense minister and chairman of the UAE’s Supreme Space Council, said on X that the country’s space sector is currently valued at roughly $12 billion and that the country aims to become one of the world’s top 10 space economies by 2031.
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