The UAE Space Agency has announced that it will carry out a new mission to explore the planet Venus and the asteroid belt by 2028, aiming to ultimately land on an asteroid.
In a bid to explore outer space, UAE is set to build a spacecraft for the mission, which will take seven years to be built and will tentatively be launched by 2028. The UAE hopes the spacecraft will land on an asteroid in 2033.
According to Emirati media, the spacecraft for the mission would orbit Venus and then Earth, using gravity assist manoeuvres to reach an asteroid belt object in 2030.
Notably, UAE successfully launched its first mission to space Mars-bound Hope probe in February 2021, marking the first Arabian mission to reach the red planet this decade.
"The historical announcement of launching UAE’s project came following six years after the work had begun," the reports said.
This step has made the Gulf state the fifth country in the world to reach Mars and the first to do so in the Arab world.
In addition to this, the probe made the UAE be the second country to ever successfully enter Mars’ orbit on its first try. The first was India.
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