The UAE's latest mission to space will see it send an autonomous spacecraft weighing 2,300kg fitted with giant foldable solar panels to an asteroid belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter.
Once there it will deploy a lander to the surface of an asteroid.
The Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt will launch the MBR Explorer, a spacecraft named after Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, in 2028.
The mission to the belt was announced in 2021, but details of the spacecraft design, mission operators and science goals were released on Monday.
The spacecraft will embark on a five-billion-kilometre journey to perform flybys of six asteroids and then deploy a lander that will touchdown on the seventh.
Apart from science, EMA could also lay the ground for future asteroid resource extraction, with the asteroid belt reportedly containing $700 quintillion worth of minerals such as iron, gold and nickel.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid announced the project at Qasr Al Watan. He was joined by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, Vice President, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Presidential Court, Sheikh Saif bin Zayed, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed, First Deputy Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mohammad Al Gergawi, Minister of Cabinet Affairs, and Mohamed Al Hussaini, Minister of State for Financial Affairs. Photo: Dubai Media Office
“The UAE project to explore the asteroid belt is a huge national scientific project and a unique global research and knowledge project,” said Sheikh Mohammed, announcing the mission on Twitter.
“It will include the establishment of private Emirati companies in space technology, the establishment of a ground control centre for deep space missions and the training of new Emirati graduates in this sector.
“The UAE can venture far into space, covering five billion kilometres for one reason: its belief in its youth and its empowerment of its citizens.”
Source: UAE Space Agency
Mohsen Al Awadhi, project director of the mission at the UAE Space Agency, told The National that private companies in the Emirates will be developing the mission alongside the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in the University of Colorado Boulder on the same institution that helped build the Hope probe.
“A lot of what we achieved on the Emirates Mars Mission is basically paving the way for this follow up mission,” he said.
“We believe these are water-rich asteroids. We want to see what other resources might be available.”
The mission will take 13 years to complete overall, with six years spent developing the spacecraft followed by a seven-year flight to the belt.
Understanding the formation of solar system
Scientists are interested in the asteroid belt because it contains remnants of the solar system and could give clues into how Earth and other planets were formed.
“What we did is try to understand what is missing information-wise and what are some interesting asteroids that scientists have been considering,” Mr Mohsen said.
The seven asteroids that the UAE spacecraft will explore are 10253 Westerwald, 623 Chimaera, 13294 Rockox, 88055, 23871, 59980. The craft will then attempt to land on 269 Justitia, a mysterious rock with a reddish hue with possible origins from the distant solar system.
It will use its two cameras and two spectrometers to make observations of the space rocks.
“Justitia was really interesting because other asteroids that are from the main asteroid belt, based on the current available observations, are mostly bluish,” Mr Mohsen said.
“Maybe it's coming from beyond Pluto and now it's here in the main asteroid belt.”
A well-crafted journey to the asteroid belt
EMA has to launch in the three-week period from March 3, 2028, as there is only one opportunity to execute the mission plan.
The spacecraft will use gravitational forces from Venus, Earth and Mars to change its velocity to reach the asteroid belt.
Most of its fuel will be used during its journey between the asteroids.
The MBR Explorer will perform close flybys of up to 150km from its seven target asteroids, at speeds of up to 33,000km/h.
Its first planetary encounter with Venus is expected to take place in July 2028.
It will pass Earth almost a year later in May 2029, before making its first three flybys of Westerwald (in February 2030), Chimaera (in June 2030) and Rockox (in January 2031).
Source: UAE Space Agency
A gravity assist manoeuvre with Mars in September 2031 will send the spacecraft to its final three flybys, passing asteroids 2000 VA28 (in July 2032), 1998 RC76 (in December 2032) and 1999 SG6 (in August 2033).
From this point it will make its final thrust to Justitia, reaching the ultra-red asteroid in October 2034 and releasing its lander in May 2035.
Has the main asteroid belt been explored before?
Scientists know that the belt has water-rich asteroids because of previous missions and discoveries made by ground-based telescopes.
Nasa's Dawn spacecraft, which launched in 2007, found water-bearing minerals on the surface of Vesta, the second largest body in the asteroid belt.
It also found abundant water ice on Ceres, another large body in the belt.
Nasa's Jupiter-bound Galileo spacecraft also beamed back images of asteroids in the belt in 1991.
Nasa's Lucy mission, which launched in 2021, is set to bypass one main belt asteroid and seven Trojan asteroids.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana
Rating: 4.5/5
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
Graphene is extracted from graphite and is made up of pure carbon.
It is 200 times more resistant than steel and five times lighter than aluminum.
It conducts electricity better than any other material at room temperature.
It is thought that graphene could boost the useful life of batteries by 10 per cent.
Graphene can also detect cancer cells in the early stages of the disease.
The material was first discovered when Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were 'playing' with graphite at the University of Manchester in 2004.
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Do not submit your application through the Easy Apply button on LinkedIn. Employers receive between 600 and 800 replies for each job advert on the platform. If you are the right fit for a job, connect to a relevant person in the company on LinkedIn and send them a direct message.
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Date of launch: November 2018
Founder: Monark Modi
Based: Business Bay, Dubai
Sector: Financial services
Size: Eight employees
Investors: Self-funded to date with $1m of personal savings
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Fulham 0
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18
This is how many recognised sects Lebanon is home to, along with about four million citizens
450,000
More than this many Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with about 45 per cent of them living in the country’s 12 refugee camps
1.5 million
There are just under 1 million Syrian refugees registered with the UN, although the government puts the figure upwards of 1.5m
73
The percentage of stateless people in Lebanon, who are not of Palestinian origin, born to a Lebanese mother, according to a 2012-2013 study by human rights organisation Frontiers Ruwad Association
18,000
The number of marriages recorded between Lebanese women and foreigners between the years 1995 and 2008, according to a 2009 study backed by the UN Development Programme
77,400
The number of people believed to be affected by the current nationality law, according to the 2009 UN study
4,926
This is how many Lebanese-Palestinian households there were in Lebanon in 2016, according to a census by the Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue committee
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Name: Timothy Husband
Nationality: New Zealand
Education: Degree in zoology at The University of Sydney
Favourite book: Lemurs of Madagascar by Russell A Mittermeier
Favourite music: Billy Joel
Weekends and holidays: Talking about animals or visiting his farm in Australia
First Person
Richard Flanagan
Chatto & Windus
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Bantamweight: Victor Nunes (BRA) beat Azizbek Satibaldiev (KYG). Round 1 KO
Welterweight: Daniel Skibinski (POL) beat Acoidan Duque (ESP). Round 3 TKO
Lightweight: Martun Mezhlumyan (ARM) beat Attila Korkmaz (TUR). Unanimous decision
Bantamweight: Ray Borg (USA) beat Jesse Arnett (CAN). Unanimous decision
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Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 261hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 405Nm at 1,750-3,500rpm
Transmission: 9-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 6.9L/100km
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More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023 More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
A widely accepted definition was made by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims in 2019: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” It further defines it as “inciting hatred or violence against Muslims”.
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• Scientists estimate there could be as many as 3 million fungal species globally • Only about 160,000 have been officially described leaving around 90% undiscovered • Fungi account for roughly 90% of Earth's unknown biodiversity • Forest fungi help tackle climate change, absorbing up to 36% of global fossil fuel emissions annually and storing around 5 billion tonnes of carbon in the planet's topsoil
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Engine: 6.2-litre supercharged V8
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Transmission: 8-speed auto
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Price: Dh380,000
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Ireland (15-1):
Ireland (15-1): Rob Kearney; Keith Earls, Chris Farrell, Bundee Aki, Jacob Stockdale; Jonathan Sexton, Conor Murray; Jack Conan, Sean O'Brien, Peter O'Mahony; James Ryan, Quinn Roux; Tadhg Furlong, Rory Best (capt), Cian Healy
Replacements: Sean Cronin, Dave Kilcoyne, Andrew Porter, Ultan Dillane, Josh van der Flier, John Cooney, Joey Carbery, Jordan Larmour
