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The Emirates Mars Mission has been postponed indefinitely after bad weather at the launch site.
But now it has been delayed once again, with mission controllers committing to announce a new date in the next 24 hours.
The UAE’s orbiter is one of three spacecraft bound for the red planet this month, alongside US and Chinese missions. All three are looking to take advantage of the favourable alignment of Mars, the Earth and the Sun which happens every 26 months.
If any of the missions miss that window in the coming weeks, they will be forced to wait until 2022 to try again.
“After extensive meetings, the UAE Space Agency and the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center through discussions with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, have announced a further delay to the Mars Hope Probe launch due to unstable weather conditions at the launch site in Tanegashima Island, Japan,” a spokesperson said. “A new launch date is due to be scheduled in the coming 24 hours.”
The UAE’s launch was initially scheduled for Tuesday, 14 July, before being pushed back to the following Friday.
Nasa has already been forced to delay its launch of the Perseverance rover until the end of July. That has led to fears that any further delays – such as those caused by unpredictable weather conditions – could lead the mission to be pushed back to the next window.
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Nasa/ESA/STScI
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The first ever selfie taken on an alien planet, captured by Nasa’s Curiosity Rover in the early days of its mission to explore Mars in 2012
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Arrokoth, the most distant object ever explored, pictured here on 1 January 2019 by a camera on Nasa’s New Horizons spaceraft at a distance of 4.1 billion miles from Earth
Getty
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The first ever image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon telescope, as part of a global collaboration involving Nasa, and released on 10 April 2019. The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides about 54 million light-years from Earth
Getty
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Pluto, as pictured by Nasa’s New Horizons spacecraft as it flew over the dwarf planet for the first time ever in July 2015
Nasa/APL/SwRI
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A coronal mass ejection as seen by the Chandra Observatory in 2019. This is the first time that Chandra has detected this phenomenon from a star other than the Sun
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Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks running downhill on the surface Mars were believed to be evidence of contemporary flowing water. It has since been suggested that they may instead be formed by flowing sand
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Morning Aurora: Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station in October 2015
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1/10
Mystic Mountain, a pillar of gas and dust standing at three-light-years tall, bursting with jets of gas from fledgling stars buried within, was captured by Nasa’s Hubble Space Telescope in February 2010
Nasa/ESA/STScI
2/10
The first ever selfie taken on an alien planet, captured by Nasa’s Curiosity Rover in the early days of its mission to explore Mars in 2012
Nasa/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
3/10
Death of a star: This image from Nasa’s Chandra X-ray telescope shows the supernova of Tycho, a star in our Milky Way galaxy
Nasa
4/10
Arrokoth, the most distant object ever explored, pictured here on 1 January 2019 by a camera on Nasa’s New Horizons spaceraft at a distance of 4.1 billion miles from Earth
Getty
5/10
An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory in January 2012. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust
Nasa
6/10
The first ever image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon telescope, as part of a global collaboration involving Nasa, and released on 10 April 2019. The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides about 54 million light-years from Earth
Getty
7/10
Pluto, as pictured by Nasa’s New Horizons spacecraft as it flew over the dwarf planet for the first time ever in July 2015
Nasa/APL/SwRI
8/10
A coronal mass ejection as seen by the Chandra Observatory in 2019. This is the first time that Chandra has detected this phenomenon from a star other than the Sun
Nasa
9/10
Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks running downhill on the surface Mars were believed to be evidence of contemporary flowing water. It has since been suggested that they may instead be formed by flowing sand
Nasa/JPL/University of Arizona
10/10
Morning Aurora: Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station in October 2015
Nasa/Scott Kelly
China’s spacecraft is due to launch around 23 July, but the country’s space agency has said little about exactly when.
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