Arab world's first asteroid hopper will visit seven space rocks

阿拉伯世界的第一艘小行星探测器将探索七颗太空小行星。

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Space Agency has confirmed details of its plan to embark on a five-billion-kilometre, seven-year journey to the main asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter.

阿拉伯联合酋长国（UAE）航天局已确认其计划的细节，即开始一次为期七年，跨越五十亿公里，前往火星和木星之间的主要小行星带的旅程。

The agency’s MBR Explorer spacecraft is intended to launch on 3 March 2028 and will orbit seven asteroids, before attempting to land on its final destination, the asteroid Justitia, in May 2035. The lander will be designed and manufactured by companies including start-ups based in the UAE, according to an announcement on 28 May. The agency says it has not yet decided on a partner organization for its launch, but is expected to make an announcement later this year.

该机构的 MBR Explorer 探测器计划于 2028 年 3 月 3 日发射，并将绕行七颗小行星，最终于 2035 年 5 月 尝试着陆其目的地小行星Justitia。根据 5 月 28 日的公告，着陆器将由阿联酋的初创企业等公司设计和制造。该机构表示，他们尚未确定发射的合作伙伴组织，但预计将在今年晚些时候做出宣布。

If successful, the mission will be the Middle East’s first and the world’s fifth to land a spacecraft on an asteroid. “Landing has only been done by a handful of other missions and on a handful of other asteroids,” says Kevin Walsh, an astronomer at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

如果成功，这次任务将会成为中东地区第一次，全球第五次将太空船着陆在小行星上。科罗拉多州博尔德的西南研究所的天文学家Kevin Walsh表示：“只有少数几次任务和少数几个小行星进行过着陆。”

“It’s challenging and expensive and time-consuming. So, to have another space agency that is attempting such an ambitious effort is really exciting,” he adds.

“这是一个充满挑战、昂贵且耗时的过程。因此，世界上又有另一个太空机构正在尝试这样宏大的计划，着实令人兴奋，” 他补充道。

The UAE Space Agency, which first announced its intentions to visit the asteroid belt in October 2021, plans to study the origin and evolution of water-rich asteroids. The seven targets belong to five known asteroid families. Surveying them will provide valuable information about the origin of water on Earth and on other planets in the Solar System, says Hoor AlMazmi, science lead for the Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt (EMA).

阿联酋航天局于2021年10月首次宣布其访问小行星带的想法，计划研究富含水的小行星的起源和演化。这七个目标属于五个已知小行星家族。阿联酋小行星带任务（EMA）的科学主管Hoor AlMazmi表示，对它们进行勘测将提供有关地球和太阳系中其他行星上水的起源的宝贵信息。

“We suspect that below the surface of the asteroid, there’s a fair bit of water or ice, particularly objects that are in the very distant part of the asteroid belt, where they’re far enough from the Sun,” says John Kavelaars, a planetary astronomer at the National Research Council of Canada in Victoria.

“我们怀疑在这颗小行星的表面下，尤其是那些位于小行星带极远端、距离太阳足够远的天体中，存在着相当多的水或冰。”加拿大国家研究委员会维多利亚分部行星天文学家John Kavelaars说道。

The MBR Explorer will make fly-bys as close as 150 kilometres to the seven asteroids, travelling at up to 33,000 kilometres per hour. Weighing more than two tonnes at take-off, the explorer will use two solar-powered ion thrusters for the longest part of its journey.

MBR Explorer 将对7颗小行星进行近距离飞越，最接近时距离仅为150公里，飞行速度高达每小时33000公里。探测器起飞时重量超过两吨，并将使用两个太阳能离子推进器在其大部分旅程作为主要动力。

Equipped with two cameras and two spectrometers, the spacecraft will capture high-resolution images and collect data on the asteroids’ temperatures and geological characteristics. These include the size and roughness of grains, as well as the minerals and organic matter contained on the asteroids' surface.

MBR Explorer 搭载了两个相机和两个光谱仪，将捕捉高分辨率图像，并收集有关小行星温度和地质特征的数据。这些数据包括颗粒的大小和粗糙度，以及小行星表面所含的矿物质和有机物质。

After orbiting the 54-kilometre-diameter Justitia for seven months starting in October 2034, the MBR Explorer will deploy a lander to touch down on the asteroid’s surface in May 2035.

2034年10月开始，MBR Explorer 探测器将绕着直径为54公里的Justitia小行星运行七个月，将在2035年5月部署着陆器着陆在小行星表面。

“For seven months, we’ll be doing really intensive studies of Justitia, nailing down our landing zones and doing a couple of rehearsals in the orbit before deploying the lander,” says Mohammed Alameri, a mechanical engineer on EMA’s spacecraft team.

“在接下来的七个月里，我们将对Justitia进行非常密集的研究，确定着陆区域并在轨道上进行几次演练，然后再部署着陆器，” EMA探测器团队的机械工程师Mohammed Alameri说道。

The scientists hope to understand more about Justitia’s origins. The asteroid's intense redness comes from complex organic material on its surface, says AlMazmi. “That indicates the existence of ice below its surface.” However, such red objects are normally found only in more distant asteroid populations, such as those in the Kuiper belt beyond Neptune and the Neptune trojans, celestial bodies orbiting the Sun in a spot near Neptune.

科学家们希望能通过这次任务来更好地了解Justitia的成因。根据AlMazmi的说法，这颗小行星表面复杂有机物质的高度红色表明其表面下存在冰。然而，这种高度红色的物体通常只存在于更远的小行星族群中，例如海王星外围的柯伊伯带和天王星的特洛伊木星。这些天体围绕太阳在靠近海王星的位置轨道运行。

“There’s an expectation that this object was probably formed in the very distant Solar System, and came inward,” says Kavelaars, who was part of a team that discovered several moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

“有一种猜想认为这个物体可能是在非常遥远的太阳系形成的，然后向太阳系内部运动，” Kavelaars 如是说。他曾经是一个发现了木星、土星、天王星和海王星的几颗卫星的团队的成员。

“To be able to compare it head-to-head with the Trojan asteroids and Kuiper belt objects is really exciting,” says Walsh.

“能够将其与特洛伊小行星和柯伊伯带天体进行直接比较，真的是令人兴奋的，”Walsh说道。

The EMA team says a key task in the spacecraft design is developing a navigation system, so it does not need to rely on instructions from mission control in Abu Dhabi. “The further the explorer is from Earth, the longer the signal delay, which will be more than an hour when the spacecraft approaches Justitia,“ says Alameri. It needs to be “autonomous enough to know exactly when to take the pictures, when to slow and point [the camera] and gather all of the science data”, he adds.

EMA团队表示，该探测器设计的一个关键任务是开发导航系统，使其不需要依赖Abu Dhabi的任务控制指令。 Alameri说：“探测器距离地球越远，信号延迟就越长，在探测器接近Justitia时这个延迟将超过一个小时。”他补充说，这个系统需要“足够自主，以便知道何时拍摄照片，何时减速并将[相机]指向正确的目标，以便收集所有科学数据”。

The MBR Explorer will also orbit Venus, Earth and Mars. During its Mars manoeuvres, it will have a chance to greet its older sibling, the Hope probe, which will be in a parking orbit around the red planet at the time. The probe is currently orbiting Mars and this year captured the first images of the far side of its moonlet, Deimos.

MBR Explorer 还将绕行金星、地球和火星。在其火星机动期间，它将有机会与其年长的姊妹机会“Hope号探测器”打招呼，后者将在停泊轨道上绕行红色星球。该探测器目前正在绕行火星，今年它拍摄了其卫星Deimos的远侧首张图像。

Until now, only four space missions have successfully landed on asteroids. Japanese missions landed on Itokawa in 2005 and on Ryugu in 2018; and NASA crafts landed on Bennu in 2020 and on Eros in 2001.

到目前为止，全世界只有四次太空任务将探测器成功着陆在小行星上。2005年，日本太空机构在 Itokawa 着陆，2018年在Ryugu着陆；NASA的探测器在2001年着陆在Eros上，而在2020年则成功着陆在Bennu上。

“These were relatively small objects. To land and operate on something that’s 50 kilometres across, it’s going to be a completely different operation,” says Walsh. Landing on asteroids “is hard because there’s no gravity to hold you down on the surface”, he adds.

“这些物体相对较小。要在直径50公里的物体上着陆和运行，将需要完全不同的操作方式，”Walsh说道。他补充说，在小行星上着陆“非常困难，因为没有重力将你固定在表面上”。