UAE to showcase asteroid mission's business opportunities

The UAE Space Agency is highlighting the business opportunities open to local and international companies as part of the Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt (EMA).

It has launched a campaign called 'Space Means Business', which will include a series of workshops to outline the potential areas for private sector participation.

"The opportunities are truly endless, from software and hardware systems design and delivery through to subsystem assembly, solar power and other electrical systems development to mission operations and management," said EMA programme director Mohsen Al Awadhi.

The UAE has stressed its commitment to award at least 50 per cent of the overall contracted mission to private firms.

The overall mission will take 13 years to complete, with six years spent on spacecraft development followed by a seven-year flight to the main asteroid belt beyond Mars, performing a series of close flybys to make unique observations of seven main-belt asteroids, including a rendezvous with the puzzling spectrally red asteroid, 269 Justitia.

The mission’s spacecraft is named the MBR Explorer. Its 5 billion km journey includes gravity assist manoeuvres around Venus, Earth and Mars to change the spacecraft’s velocity and support its flyby campaign, with its first asteroid encounter taking place in February 2030.

Subsequent flybys will occur through to 2034, when the mission’s seventh asteroid encounter will involve a rendezvous and landing, with the spacecraft releasing a lander, which will beam data up from the asteroid surface.