It will take approximately one hour for a Japanese H-2A rocket to propel the Hope Mars orbiter on a trajectory to escape Earth’s gravitational bond, kicking off a seven-month journey to the Red Planet.
The 174-foot-tall (53-meter) rocket is set for liftoff at 5:58:14 p.m. EDT (2158:14 GMT) Sunday from Launch Pad No. 1 at the Yoshinobu launch complex located at the Tanegashima Space Center. The spaceport is situated on Tanegashima Island on the southern end of the Japanese main islands.
Liftoff is timed for 6:58 a.m. Japan Standard Time on Monday.
The launch will mark the 42nd flight of an H-2A rocket since 2001, and Japan’s third space launch of 2020. It will also be the first H-2A launch to carry a mission to Mars, and the fourth H-2A rocket mission with a probe heading to another world, following flights that deployed spacecraft destined for the moon, Venus, and an asteroid.
The Emirates Mars Mission’s Hope spacecraft will enter orbit around the Red Planet in February 2021 and gather data on the Martian climate and weather.
The timeline below outlines the launch sequence for the H-2A flight with the Emirates Mars Mission’s Hope spacecraft.
SpaceX launched a prototype Starship rocket Tuesday from its Boca Chica, Texas, flight facility, successfully sending the silver booster up to an altitude of about six miles as planned. But the unpiloted test flight ended with a spectacular explosion when the rocket failed to right itself and slow down enough for a tail-first landing.
A new era in GPS navigation launched Sunday, when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket climbed into orbit with a Lockheed Martin-built satellite designed to beam higher-power positioning, navigation and timing signals around the world, providing military and civilian users with more accurate data that is more resistant to growing jamming threats.