This week two countries have been able to celebrate the safe insertion into Martian orbit of their space probes. And neither country had ever before launched an interplanetary mission. They are the United Arab Emirates (UAE), whose Hope (in Arabic, Amal) spacecraft entered Martian orbit on Tuesday, and China, whose Tianwen-1 (in English, ‘Questions to Heaven-1’) entered Martian orbit on Wednesday. The UAE Space Agency (UAESA) became only the fifth entity, after its US, Soviet/Russian, European and Japanese counterparts, to place a spacecraft in orbit around Mars. Consequently, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) is the sixth such agency. The key moment for both was the achievement of Mars orbit insertion (MOI) by their respective spacecraft.
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