As the Emirates Mars Mission ‘Hope Probe’ makes history as the first ever probe sent from Earth to provide a complete picture of the Martian atmosphere, a Southampton graduate is also celebrating his role in the orbiter as the Arab world’s first interplanetary spacecraft.
The Director General of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Space Agency, Dr Mohammed Nasser Al Ahbabi, completed his MSc in Optical Fibre Communications in 2001 at Southampton, graduating with a distinction from the University’s Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) within the Zepler Institute, followed in 2005 by a PhD in Optical Technology – Distributed Sensing.
For the last seven years, Dr Al Ahbabi has been Director General of the Emirates Space Agency. Since 20 July 2020 Dr Al Ahbabi has followed the progress of the Hope Probe since its launch from Tanegashima island in Japan. He now hopes the probe will create a leap in the interests of all Arabs to become more involved in science and, perhaps, motivate them to go into the space sector.
“The UAE project to explore Mars has gone through great challenges, seven years ago, and the last of these challenges was the Corona pandemic, the conditions for transporting the probe to Japan, and then the launch of the probe to Mars, which were not easy circumstances,” said Dr Al Ahbabi.
Dr Mohammed Nasser Al Ahbabi
The Hope Probe is a fully autonomous spacecraft, carrying three instruments to measure Mars’ atmosphere. The orbiter will help answer key questions about the global Martian atmosphere and the loss of hydrogen and oxygen gases into space over the span of one Martian year. The probe will also reveal the mechanisms behind the upward transport of energy and particles, and the subsequent escape of atmospheric particles from the gravity of the red planet.
Professor Sir David Payne, Director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre, said “Of the hundreds of ORC alumni in key positions all over the world, Dr Al Ahbabi is one of the most distinguished. His leadership and accomplishments are simply outstanding. It makes us so proud to have played a part in his extraordinary career.”
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