The country's space probe, called Hope, officially entered Mars orbit at around 16:15 GMT on Tuesday, marking the completion of a 493 million km journey from Earth. The Mars Orbit Insertion is now complete,' the Hope Mars Mission Twitter account posted. Around 10 minutes after the MOI burn, the Hope probe flied into the dark side of Mars and entered a capture orbit. The probe has a 20,000–43,000 km elliptical science orbit, and completes one orbit of the planet every 55 hours. Omran Sharaf, Emirates Mars Mission (Hope Probe) project director, Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre, said: 'MOI was the most critical and dangerous part of our journey to Mars, exposing the Hope probe to stresses and pressures it has never before faced.

Source: The Nation February 09, 2021 17:03 UTC