Arab world's first asteroid hopper will visit seven space rocks

阿拉伯世界的第一艘小行星探測(cè)器將探索七顆太空小行星。

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Space Agency has confirmed details of its plan to embark on a five-billion-kilometre, seven-year journey to the main asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter.

阿拉伯聯(lián)合酋長(zhǎng)國(guó)（UAE）航天局已確認(rèn)其計(jì)劃的細(xì)節(jié)，即開始一次為期七年，跨越五十億公里，前往火星和木星之間的主要小行星帶的旅程。

The agency’s MBR Explorer spacecraft is intended to launch on 3 March 2028 and will orbit seven asteroids, before attempting to land on its final destination, the asteroid Justitia, in May 2035. The lander will be designed and manufactured by companies including start-ups based in the UAE, according to an announcement on 28 May. The agency says it has not yet decided on a partner organization for its launch, but is expected to make an announcement later this year.

該機(jī)構(gòu)的 MBR Explorer 探測(cè)器計(jì)劃于 2028 年 3 月 3 日發(fā)射，并將繞行七顆小行星，最終于 2035 年 5 月 嘗試著陸其目的地小行星Justitia。根據(jù) 5 月 28 日的公告，著陸器將由阿聯(lián)酋的初創(chuàng)企業(yè)等公司設(shè)計(jì)和制造。該機(jī)構(gòu)表示，他們尚未確定發(fā)射的合作伙伴組織，但預(yù)計(jì)將在今年晚些時(shí)候做出宣布。

If successful, the mission will be the Middle East’s first and the world’s fifth to land a spacecraft on an asteroid. “Landing has only been done by a handful of other missions and on a handful of other asteroids,” says Kevin Walsh, an astronomer at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

如果成功，這次任務(wù)將會(huì)成為中東地區(qū)第一次，全球第五次將太空船著陸在小行星上?？屏_拉多州博爾德的西南研究所的天文學(xué)家Kevin Walsh表示：“只有少數(shù)幾次任務(wù)和少數(shù)幾個(gè)小行星進(jìn)行過著陸?！?/p>

“It’s challenging and expensive and time-consuming. So, to have another space agency that is attempting such an ambitious effort is really exciting,” he adds.

“這是一個(gè)充滿挑戰(zhàn)、昂貴且耗時(shí)的過程。因此，世界上又有另一個(gè)太空機(jī)構(gòu)正在嘗試這樣宏大的計(jì)劃，著實(shí)令人興奮，” 他補(bǔ)充道。

The UAE Space Agency, which first announced its intentions to visit the asteroid belt in October 2021, plans to study the origin and evolution of water-rich asteroids. The seven targets belong to five known asteroid families. Surveying them will provide valuable information about the origin of water on Earth and on other planets in the Solar System, says Hoor AlMazmi, science lead for the Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt (EMA).

阿聯(lián)酋航天局于2021年10月首次宣布其訪問小行星帶的想法，計(jì)劃研究富含水的小行星的起源和演化。這七個(gè)目標(biāo)屬于五個(gè)已知小行星家族。阿聯(lián)酋小行星帶任務(wù)（EMA）的科學(xué)主管Hoor AlMazmi表示，對(duì)它們進(jìn)行勘測(cè)將提供有關(guān)地球和太陽(yáng)系中其他行星上水的起源的寶貴信息。

“We suspect that below the surface of the asteroid, there’s a fair bit of water or ice, particularly objects that are in the very distant part of the asteroid belt, where they’re far enough from the Sun,” says John Kavelaars, a planetary astronomer at the National Research Council of Canada in Victoria.

“我們懷疑在這顆小行星的表面下，尤其是那些位于小行星帶極遠(yuǎn)端、距離太陽(yáng)足夠遠(yuǎn)的天體中，存在著相當(dāng)多的水或冰?！奔幽么髧?guó)家研究委員會(huì)維多利亞分部行星天文學(xué)家John Kavelaars說道。

The MBR Explorer will make fly-bys as close as 150 kilometres to the seven asteroids, travelling at up to 33,000 kilometres per hour. Weighing more than two tonnes at take-off, the explorer will use two solar-powered ion thrusters for the longest part of its journey.

MBR Explorer 將對(duì)7顆小行星進(jìn)行近距離飛越，最接近時(shí)距離僅為150公里，飛行速度高達(dá)每小時(shí)33000公里。探測(cè)器起飛時(shí)重量超過兩噸，并將使用兩個(gè)太陽(yáng)能離子推進(jìn)器在其大部分旅程作為主要?jiǎng)恿Α?/p>

Equipped with two cameras and two spectrometers, the spacecraft will capture high-resolution images and collect data on the asteroids’ temperatures and geological characteristics. These include the size and roughness of grains, as well as the minerals and organic matter contained on the asteroids' surface.

MBR Explorer 搭載了兩個(gè)相機(jī)和兩個(gè)光譜儀，將捕捉高分辨率圖像，并收集有關(guān)小行星溫度和地質(zhì)特征的數(shù)據(jù)。這些數(shù)據(jù)包括顆粒的大小和粗糙度，以及小行星表面所含的礦物質(zhì)和有機(jī)物質(zhì)。

After orbiting the 54-kilometre-diameter Justitia for seven months starting in October 2034, the MBR Explorer will deploy a lander to touch down on the asteroid’s surface in May 2035.

2034年10月開始，MBR Explorer 探測(cè)器將繞著直徑為54公里的Justitia小行星運(yùn)行七個(gè)月，將在2035年5月部署著陸器著陸在小行星表面。

“For seven months, we’ll be doing really intensive studies of Justitia, nailing down our landing zones and doing a couple of rehearsals in the orbit before deploying the lander,” says Mohammed Alameri, a mechanical engineer on EMA’s spacecraft team.

“在接下來(lái)的七個(gè)月里，我們將對(duì)Justitia進(jìn)行非常密集的研究，確定著陸區(qū)域并在軌道上進(jìn)行幾次演練，然后再部署著陸器，” EMA探測(cè)器團(tuán)隊(duì)的機(jī)械工程師Mohammed Alameri說道。

The scientists hope to understand more about Justitia’s origins. The asteroid's intense redness comes from complex organic material on its surface, says AlMazmi. “That indicates the existence of ice below its surface.” However, such red objects are normally found only in more distant asteroid populations, such as those in the Kuiper belt beyond Neptune and the Neptune trojans, celestial bodies orbiting the Sun in a spot near Neptune.

科學(xué)家們希望能通過這次任務(wù)來(lái)更好地了解Justitia的成因。根據(jù)AlMazmi的說法，這顆小行星表面復(fù)雜有機(jī)物質(zhì)的高度紅色表明其表面下存在冰。然而，這種高度紅色的物體通常只存在于更遠(yuǎn)的小行星族群中，例如海王星外圍的柯伊伯帶和天王星的特洛伊木星。這些天體圍繞太陽(yáng)在靠近海王星的位置軌道運(yùn)行。

“There’s an expectation that this object was probably formed in the very distant Solar System, and came inward,” says Kavelaars, who was part of a team that discovered several moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

“有一種猜想認(rèn)為這個(gè)物體可能是在非常遙遠(yuǎn)的太陽(yáng)系形成的，然后向太陽(yáng)系內(nèi)部運(yùn)動(dòng)，” Kavelaars 如是說。他曾經(jīng)是一個(gè)發(fā)現(xiàn)了木星、土星、天王星和海王星的幾顆衛(wèi)星的團(tuán)隊(duì)的成員。

“To be able to compare it head-to-head with the Trojan asteroids and Kuiper belt objects is really exciting,” says Walsh.

“能夠?qū)⑵渑c特洛伊小行星和柯伊伯帶天體進(jìn)行直接比較，真的是令人興奮的，”Walsh說道。

The EMA team says a key task in the spacecraft design is developing a navigation system, so it does not need to rely on instructions from mission control in Abu Dhabi. “The further the explorer is from Earth, the longer the signal delay, which will be more than an hour when the spacecraft approaches Justitia,“ says Alameri. It needs to be “autonomous enough to know exactly when to take the pictures, when to slow and point [the camera] and gather all of the science data”, he adds.

EMA團(tuán)隊(duì)表示，該探測(cè)器設(shè)計(jì)的一個(gè)關(guān)鍵任務(wù)是開發(fā)導(dǎo)航系統(tǒng)，使其不需要依賴Abu Dhabi的任務(wù)控制指令。 Alameri說：“探測(cè)器距離地球越遠(yuǎn)，信號(hào)延遲就越長(zhǎng)，在探測(cè)器接近Justitia時(shí)這個(gè)延遲將超過一個(gè)小時(shí)?！彼a(bǔ)充說，這個(gè)系統(tǒng)需要“足夠自主，以便知道何時(shí)拍攝照片，何時(shí)減速并將[相機(jī)]指向正確的目標(biāo)，以便收集所有科學(xué)數(shù)據(jù)”。

The MBR Explorer will also orbit Venus, Earth and Mars. During its Mars manoeuvres, it will have a chance to greet its older sibling, the Hope probe, which will be in a parking orbit around the red planet at the time. The probe is currently orbiting Mars and this year captured the first images of the far side of its moonlet, Deimos.

MBR Explorer 還將繞行金星、地球和火星。在其火星機(jī)動(dòng)期間，它將有機(jī)會(huì)與其年長(zhǎng)的姊妹機(jī)會(huì)“Hope號(hào)探測(cè)器”打招呼，后者將在停泊軌道上繞行紅色星球。該探測(cè)器目前正在繞行火星，今年它拍攝了其衛(wèi)星Deimos的遠(yuǎn)側(cè)首張圖像。

Until now, only four space missions have successfully landed on asteroids. Japanese missions landed on Itokawa in 2005 and on Ryugu in 2018; and NASA crafts landed on Bennu in 2020 and on Eros in 2001.

到目前為止，全世界只有四次太空任務(wù)將探測(cè)器成功著陸在小行星上。2005年，日本太空機(jī)構(gòu)在 Itokawa 著陸，2018年在Ryugu著陸；NASA的探測(cè)器在2001年著陸在Eros上，而在2020年則成功著陸在Bennu上。

“These were relatively small objects. To land and operate on something that’s 50 kilometres across, it’s going to be a completely different operation,” says Walsh. Landing on asteroids “is hard because there’s no gravity to hold you down on the surface”, he adds.

“這些物體相對(duì)較小。要在直徑50公里的物體上著陸和運(yùn)行，將需要完全不同的操作方式，”Walsh說道。他補(bǔ)充說，在小行星上著陸“非常困難，因?yàn)闆]有重力將你固定在表面上”。