The UAE has built an asteroid lander that engineers don’t expect to survive its own arrival. After an eight-year trip of about 5 billion km, the probe will hit 269 Justitia at 15 to 27 m/s (34 to 60 mph), according to the mission team, with no meaningful way to brake.
“We don’t expect that the probe will survive the touchdown,” said Mariam Alhammadi, a researcher at Abu Dhabi’s Technology Innovation Institute (TII), which built the lander.
In the Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt (EMA), seven asteroids will be visited. The main craft, MBR Explorer, employs gravity assist manoeuvres using Venus, Earth, and Mars in order to approach six asteroids prior to approaching Justitia. The landing craft is piggybacked on board the main craft.
It all depends on the launch. According to the mission’s team, the launch should take place within a three-week window that opens up in early March 2028, with no opportunity for similar launch conditions occurring in the next 100 years.
“We’re not planning for any other opportunities,” mission director Mohsen al-Awadhi told the media.
Justitia is among the reddest bodies in the main belt, with a spectrum closer to icy Kuiper Belt objects than to its neighbours. It may have formed in the outer solar system before migrating inward.
If so, it could still hold water-related minerals and organic compounds, TII researcher Elias Tsoutsanis said.
The MBR Explorer is expected to travel in space for about seven months before dropping the probe in early 2036.
The mother spaceship cannot come close to the surface, less than a few kilometres away, and so the probe travels independently, eventually crashing. It may create a small hole exposing some materials not visible by orbital observation.
After launch, the lander will be unable to receive any command from the ground or the main spaceship. The probe uses AI to determine the best timing of picture taking and ranks the pictures, sending only the best shots once every six months.
There are two cameras on board intended to film the descent process. In case of survival, its battery should last up to 20 to 50 minutes.
