Skip to main content

NASA is teaming up with United Arab Emirates to gather data for a manned mission to Mars

While most of us were lazing around playing video games or catching up on chores over the weekend, NASA spent its Sunday announcing a new agreement with the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The agreement will see both nations collaborate on a range of space project and aeronautical researching — including the possibility of a cooperative mission to Mars.

“NASA is leading an ambitious journey to Mars that includes partnerships with the private sector and many international partners,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “I am confident this new framework agreement with the UAE Space Agency will help advance this journey.”

Recommended Videos

The UAE Space Agency (UAESA) has been open about its plans to land an unmanned probe on Mars by the year 2021, which just so happens to mark the nation’s fiftieth anniversary. NASA, for its part, wants to land American astronauts on Mars sometime in the 2030s. Together it’s a match made in… well, the heavens.

Population: us?
Population: us? Moyan Brenn/Flickr CC

“The reason why cooperation and collaboration are important to the UAESA is because we believe that working alongside international partners is the best way to accelerate the development of space technologies and the space sector within the UAE,” said UAE Space Agency Chairman Dr. Khalifa Al Romaithi.

Speaking to Digital Trends about the newly-announced collaboration, American astronautics engineer and co-founder of The Planetary Society Louis D. Friedman said that the exploration of Mars should be a human mission — and not confined to any one nation.

“It must be that of Earth, not just of any single nation or company,” he says. “It will be advanced and enabled by international cooperation and the efforts by NASA to lead on this Journey to Mars are a welcome step forward.”

Friedman observes that international collaboration has been in NASA’s DNA dating back to the original Space Act in 1958. This has so far led to great global projects like the International Space Station and International Halley Watch. Here in 2016, global global initiatives like this meeting of the minds are a must-have in the modern space race.

“It is a complex effort to build an international effort, but worth the cost politically, economically, and technically,” Friedman says.

Luke Dormehl
I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…
NASA’s Mars rover makes ‘one small drop for humankind’
The first Mars rock sample left at a collection site by NASA's Perseverance rover.

NASA has taken a significant step forward in getting Mars samples back to Earth after its Perseverance rover deposited its first rock-filled tube on the martian surface for possible collection by a later mission.

Perseverance, which has been gathering samples from Mars since arriving there in February 2021, deposited the sample on Wednesday, December 21.

Read more
NASA declares Mars InSight lander mission officially over
This illustration shows NASA's InSight spacecraft with its instruments deployed on the Martian surface.

Just over four years after reaching Mars, NASA has officially announced the end of its InSight lander mission.

The declaration came on Wednesday, December 21, after NASA failed to make contact with the lander across two consecutive attempts, leading the mission team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to conclude that InSight’s solar-powered batteries had run out of energy, a state referred to as “dead bus.”

Read more
Final messages from NASA’s Mars lander will bring a tear to your eye
A view from NASA's InSight lander showing its wind and thermal shield covering some of its science instruments.

The last image from NASA's InSight lander shows the wind and thermal shield covering some of its science instruments. NASA

It’s been known for some time that NASA’s InSight Lander was coming to the end of its operations on Mars after four years of service. And it looks as if its final communication with Earth has just taken place.

Read more