It will also add to knowledge about Mars atmospheric hydrogen and oxygen loss and other possible reasons behind the planet's drastic climate changes.

The mission is being carried out by a team of Emirati engineers in collaboration with foreign research institutions, and is a contribution towards a knowledge-based economy in the UAE.

In April 2023, The New York Times reported an updated global map of Mars based on images from the Hope spacecraft.

[15] The mission was announced by Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the President of the United Arab Emirates, in July 2014,[16] and is aimed at enriching the capabilities of Emirati engineers and increasing human knowledge about the Martian atmosphere.

[25] As per the agreement, the Emirates Mars Mission will be funded by the UAE Space Agency and it will also supervise the complete execution process for the Hope probe.

[16] The mission deputy project manager and science lead, Sarah Al Amiri, collaborated with LASP, UC Berkeley, and ASU to design and build the orbiter.

Hope uses two 900 watts solar panels to charge its batteries, and it communicates with Earth using a high-gain 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) - wide dish antenna.

The spacecraft is equipped with star tracker sensors which help determine its position in space by identifying the constellations in relation to the Sun.

According to the UAE's minister of cabinet affairs, Mohammad bin Abdullah Al Gergawi, the mission's cost was US$200 million.

[37] The spacecraft was successfully launched on a Mitsubishi H-IIA rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center near Minamitane, Japan on 19 July 2020, at 21:58:14 UTC.

The EMM team selected a set of three instruments and a high supersynchronous orbit, to provide a global view of Mars' atmosphere.

[34] In April 2023, The New York Times reported an updated global map of Mars based on images from the Hope spacecraft.

[14] During a fly-by performed on March 10 2023, the first-ever close-up global images of the Martian moon Deimos were released, taken by the Mars Hope orbiter.

[9] The probe arrived at the launch site in Japan in April 2020, after officials navigated coronavirus-related quarantine protocols and travel restrictions.

However, the coronavirus forced officials to shuffle the schedule, and mission managers decided to send the probe to Japan earlier.

The decision to ship the spacecraft to the launch site forced engineers in Dubai to curtail some of the planned testings on the probe, but all critical checks were completed before the orbiter left for Japan in April 2020.

The officials dispatched 11 engineers and technicians in early April to Japan, where they spent two weeks in quarantine to ensure they had no symptoms of the COVID-19 viral disease.

Packaged inside a climate-controlled shipping container, the spacecraft was transported in a Russian-operated, Ukrainian-built Antonov An-124 cargo plane from Dubai to Nagoya, Japan.

The final phase of the journey occurred aboard a ship, which carried the probe from Nagoya to Tanegashima Island on 24 April 2020.

[60][61] The UAE's Hope Mars orbiter successfully executed its first interplanetary course correction maneuver (TCM1), mission officials announced 17 August 2020.