The UAE’s Hope probe has clocked more than 200 million kilometres since it was launched 73 days ago from Japan’s Tanegashima Island.
Live tracking of the Hope orbiter, including distance travelled, journey remaining and its speed, has been made public on the official Emirates Mars Mission website.
The mission aims to study the atmospheric conditions of the Red Planet by capturing data using Hope’s three scientific instruments.
As of Thursday, the probe had travelled more than 200,399,900 km at a speed of 105,008 km per hour.
Out of its total 493.5 million km journey, the mission has less than 280,190,000 km to go until its reaches Mars’ orbit.
From the live tracker, it appears that orbit insertion will take place around February 9 or February 10.
Orbit insertion is the most critical part of the journey and only one country so far – India – has managed to do it successfully in the first attempt.
The probe is currently in cruise phase, with two trajectory correction manoeuvers already completed.
The third one is scheduled for November and four more remaining after that.
In August, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, shared images of Mars that the orbiter took using its star tracker device.
The United States and China both launched Mars missions during the same blast-off window in July.
