The Emirates Mars Mission is on track to meet its target date of landing on Mars in 2021, according to the head of the project mission.

“We are on schedule,” Omran Shara, head of Emirates Mars Mission and senior director of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre, told reporters on the sidelines of the World Government Summit on Tuesday.

“The space probe model will be ready by end of 2019 for our launch in mid 2020. The jouney will take seven months and we will reach Mars early 2021, which will give us enough time to turn on the scientific instruments and calibrate them,” said Shara.

The space probe, named ‘Hope’, will study the Red Planet’s  rocky soil which closely resembles Earth’s desert terrain and will also analyse Martian atmosphere 24 hours a day.

“We will collect the data, verify them, and hopefully  share some of the  findings by December 2021,” Shara said.

Shara added that the journey to Mars started two years ago with some of the world’s top space agencies are involved in the project but the creation and assembly line of the space model will be done in the UAE.

The project has also spurred space exploration in the country, according Ibrahim Hamza, head of outreach – Emirates Mars Mission.

Hamza said: “We were able to engage about 10,000 students in the last six months and it is hoped that the mission will stimulate young minds to  be more interested on science and technology as they follow the space project in the lead up to launch.”