Space science draws Emirati youth
TEAM BEHIND UAE’S MARS MISSION IS DOING ITS BIT TO CREATE FUTURE SCIENTISTS BY CONDUCTING TOURS AND WORKSHOPS FOR STUDENTS
Team behind Mars mission is creating future scientists by conducting tours and workshops |
Just a little over a year since the UAE announced its Mars mission, interest in space science has started gathering momentum among younger Emiratis.
With the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology starting development of its third satellite — KhalifaSat, due for launch in 2018 — the interest will only grow.
His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, announced last year that the UAE would send the first Arab probe to Mars to create mankind’s first integrated model of the Martian atmosphere.
To be launched in July 2020, the unmanned probe called Al Amal (Arabic for hope) will go on an approximately 200-day journey. It is expected to enter Mars’ orbit in the first quarter of 2021, in time for the UAE’s 50th National Day.
Roughly four years before the launch, the team behind the mission is comfortably hitting its targets.
“The Mars Mission is on schedule and we’re moving forward with the schedule. We are currently in the subsystem design phase, which should be completed by the end of the year,” Omran Sharaf, project manager of the UAE Mars Mission, told Gulf News during a visit to the Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC).
Laying the foundation
The mission is not only focused on the journey to the Red Planet; team members are busy conducting workshops to prepare the community and scientific community on how to use the data that will be gathered by the probe.
“This is a milestone because you are preparing future scientists to use data that has never been provided before. You need to have people who already know how to use it,” Sharaf said.
The centre houses more than 150 Emirati employees, 70 per cent of whom are engineers. Salem Humaid Al Merri, assistant director at MBRSC, said that while that number is good for now, the country will need more space scientists and engineers in the coming years.
“Definitely, we need more UAE scientists, engineers and technicians. The more we have in this field, the better for this country, especially as we’re transitioning to a knowledge-based economy,” Al Merri said.
Central role
The centre aims to achieve this by taking a central role in reaching out to the community and sparking interest in space science among students, which includes a weekly tour of the centre.
“When I was a kid, we used to go to the Emirates Macaroni factory, or Pepsi factory; these were fields trips we used to take. The field trips that these kids are taking now are to this space centre,” Al Merri said.
Apart from the weekly tours, the centre has also reached more than 10,000 students in the UAE through the Teacher Ambassador programme, which trains educators to hone the next generation’s engineers and scientists.
“So if 10 per cent of that number [10,000 students]
would say, ‘I want to go into sciences, I want to study maths, I want to study physics’, we’ve succeeded,” Al Merri said.
Change in mindset
A lot has changed among students’ mindsets, Sharaf said, and it’s all thanks to Shaikh Mohammad’s vision for the
Emirati youth, strong government support for space science and exploration, and also the Mars Mission.
“We see students line up to attend the science workshops we hold. That for us is a shift in interest among students,” Sharaf said.
The limited career path for
engineers and scientists has changed as the government transitions to a post-oil economy.
“Before, they had quite a limited career path, especially when you’re focused on science, but now you have a chance to even work in space missions and so on.”