Hope Probe Places UAE Among World's Major Space Powers, Says President Of French Space Agency

(UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 09th Feb, 2021) PARIS, 9th February, 2019 (WAM) - Jean-Yves Le Gall, President of the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the French space agency, said that following the launch of Hope Probe last July, the world has begun to view the UAE as a rising power in the field of space exploration.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Emirates news Agency (WAM) from his office in Paris, Le Gall said that this first Arab exploratory flight led by the UAE, places it among the ranks of leaders in the field of space sciences, saying that France's "leadership, people and space agency" are closely following the mission with high expectations for its services to science.

He added that since the early developments in the field of space science, there were always six powers who dominated; namely the US, Europe, China, Japan, Russia and India, "and if we wanted to add a seventh force, it will inevitably be the UAE," he said.

He went on, "In France, we are proud to be the first space agency in the world that signed a cooperation agreement with the UAE - several cooperation agreements with the UAE Space Agency, and industrial and technical partnerships with the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre.

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Regarding UAE's interest in investing and developing the field, the President of the French Space Centre said that the UAE's recent advancements are very impressive, and that there is a great political will to develop it further with the allocation of a significant budget for space science.

Le Gall also said that there are many competent Emiratis who have who studied the field, both inside the UAE and abroad, adding that Emirati students no longer need to travel abroad to study space science, as the UAE has made the specialisation available in the country.

In response to what the world expects from the Hope mission in the Red Planet, he said that the process of orbiting Mars is very complex "so it is no wonder that the mission of Hope Probe's mission is the first time that a space probe would be landing on its orbit.

"This, of course, will enable us all to learn about the characteristics of the Martian climate, as well as to take photos of it from all directions, so the Emirati Hope Probe will enrich our scientific knowledge about the red planet," he added.