The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has moved a step closer to launching its second-ever interplanetary mission — an ambitious, eight-year exploration of seven asteroids between Mars and Jupiter that will culminate with a landing on the mysteriously red asteroid 269 Justitia.
The mission team unveiled a half-scale model of the homegrown probe that will make that landing during an Oct. 1 press conference in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE. The autonomous craft will ride attached to the main spacecraft MBR Explorer, named after Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai and the UAE's prime minister.
The flight-ready lander is being kept pristine in a vacuum chamber in the capital before being transported to Colorado by Etihad Airways, officials said, where it will be integrated with the main spacecraft, which was developed by the UAE Space Agency.
If all goes to plan, the mission will lift off from Japan in March 2028, kicking off the Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt (EMA). The project is an ambitious follow-up to the UAE Space Agency's Hope Mars orbiter, which has been studying the Red Planet since 2021.
"It's a proud moment for us here at the UAE," said Faisal al-Bannai, the secretary general of the Advanced Technology Research Council in Abu Dhabi.
'We don't know what we're going to find'
EMA will conduct high-speed flybys of six asteroids before reaching and orbiting 269 Justitia. It will travel a total of about 3 billion miles (5 billion kilometers), which is equivalent to circling Earth roughly 125,000 times, said Najwa Aaraj, the CEO of the Technology Innovation Institute (TII) in Abu Dhabi, which designed, built and tested the mission's lander.
Along the way, the MBR Explorer will utilize gravity assists from Venus and then Earth to swing deeper into space, zipping past its first three asteroid targets: 10253 Westerwald, 623 Chimaera and 13294 Rockox. A subsequent gravity assist from Mars will fling the spacecraft even farther out, guiding it past three more space rocks: 88055 Ghaf, 23871 Ousha and 59980 Moza.
By 2036, the spacecraft is scheduled to rendezvous with its final and most intriguing target, 269 Justitia. A roughly 30-mile-wide (50 km) object in the middle of the asteroid belt, 269 Justitia is unusual for its remarkably crimson hue.
Its distinct color more closely resembles icy objects in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune than its immediate main-belt neighbors. This unique trait has led planetary scientists to hypothesize that the asteroid formed in the frigid outer solar system and migrated inward early in the solar system's history. If true, visiting 269 Justitia would offer a rare, close-up look at pristine material from the distant outer solar system via a much shorter journey.
Scientists are particularly excited that the asteroid may still hold water-related minerals and organic compounds preserved from its origins. Studying its surface could therefore offer clues to how water and organic material were distributed as planets began to form, Elias Tsoutsanis, a chief researcher at TII's propulsion and space research center, said during the press briefing.
"We don't know what we're going to find — that's exploration," Tsoutsanis told reporters. "We're really excited."
According to the mission plan, the MBR Explorer will spend roughly seven months studying 269 Justitia from orbit. Beginning at an altitude of 155 miles (250 km), the spacecraft will gradually lower its path before releasing the lander. The smaller probe will then head toward the asteroid's surface, a descent that should take two to three hours depending on 269 Justitia's precise gravity, which remains unknown.
Although TII describes the mission ending with a landing on the surface of 269 Justitia, the engineering details suggest a more violent endgame. Cruising toward the asteroid's surface at 15 to 27 meters per second (34 to 60 mph) with no meaningful way to slow down, the probe will function less like a traditional lander and more like a planned impactor.
"We don't expect that the probe will survive the touchdown," said Mariam Alhammadi, a researcher in TII leading the mission's electric propulsion.
To ensure its two onboard cameras capture essential imagery during the descent, the probe will rely on an attitude-control system to counteract any post-separation spin, Alhammadi said. Should the probe unexpectedly survive the hard landing, she added, its battery is built to last 20 to 50 minutes, providing a narrow but crucial window for it to beam close-ups of the asteroid's surface back to Earth.
The high-velocity impact is also expected to dig a small crater on 269 Justitia, possibly exposing pristine subsurface material. Because this material cannot be imaged from orbit, the team expects the probe's final images to be among the most valuable of the entire mission.
Zero margin for error
Back on Earth, the team faces an unforgiving timeline. To execute the planned flybys, the mission must launch during a narrow three-week window that opens in early March 2028.
"God forbid we miss that — we basically don't have a mission," Mohsen al-Awadhi, the mission director at the UAE Space Agency, told reporters at the press conference. The orbital mechanics are so rigid that another comparable opportunity will not arise for at least 100 years, prompting al-Awadhi to add that he is devoting no time and energy to a backup plan.
Meeting the launch window is just the first hurdle, however. Once deployed in deep space, the lander must operate with absolute autonomy, receiving no commands from Earth or the main MBR Explorer spacecraft, the team says.
"In these eight years, I have no control to call it back — so nothing can go wrong," said Aaraj.
The team is confident that rigorous engineering and testing have produced a probe that can essentially "think for itself." Equipped with AI, it is designed to decide on its own when to capture images and how to filter and rank the most valuable data. Rather than waiting until it reaches its destination, the lander will take images throughout its eight-year cruise and send the best ones back to Earth roughly every six months, according to a TII statement.
Officials declined to disclose the mission's overall cost or say whether it has stayed on budget. The United States' ongoing war in Iran has sparked missile and drone attacks across the UAE, but the mission team has persevered: WIRED reported that they pressed on even as missiles were intercepted overhead.
Looking ahead
Beyond the immediate scientific return, officials said a central pillar of this mission is accelerating the UAE's sovereign deep-space capabilities and fostering its domestic space economy.
The UAE Space Agency, established in 2014, has steadily expanded its portfolio from satellite launches to a Martian orbiter and sending two astronauts to the International Space Station. The EMA probe represents a developmental leap, designed and built in just under two years by a team of roughly 50 local engineers and scientists, many of whom began their careers as entry-level technicians on the Hope Mars mission.
"I don't want to call them my kids — there's a lot of them — but that's how attached I feel to them," al-Awadhi said during the briefing.
The UAE aims to position itself among the world's 10 largest space economies by 2031, targeting a massive expansion of a sector currently valued at about $12 billion. According to al-Bannai, the EMA project is designed to be one of many programs to come. By the time the lander impacts 269 Justitia in 2036, the technology matured during this journey will already be driving the next generation of Emirati spacecraft, he said.
"That's the journey we're on today."
