Technological Innovation Institute Completes Asteroid-Landing Probe for Landmark Emirates Mission to Asteroid Belt

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates – The Technological Innovation Institute (TII) announced the UAE-built probe it has developed for the Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt (EMA). The probe will soon travel to Colorado, USA, for final integration with the MBR Explorer spacecraft before its planned 2028 launch. In the first history, the TII probe will image two planets and seven asteroids – flying through six asteroids in the main belt before culminating in a rendezvous with and landing on the seventh, 269 Justitia. If successful, the landing will make Justitia only the seventh asteroid in history to be reached on the surface by a probe.

Designed, built and tested end-to-end in Abu Dhabi by TII’s Propulsion and Space Research Center, in collaboration with the UAE Space Agency, as well as HEX20, Khalifa University and the UAE University’s National Center for Space Science and Technology, the probe built by TII is the only payload that can be deployed on a mission. It will separate from the MBR Explorer to make contact with the surface of Justitia at the farthest point of the mission and operate autonomously in deep space, taking close-range images and excavating the surface to provide new insights into its composition and physical characteristics. 269 ​​​​Justitia is thought to have formed in the Kuiper Belt before migrating to the main asteroid belt during the early formation of the Solar System.

said: “If you want to build serious technological capabilities, you take on problems that force you to push further. For this mission, it means a probe that must make decisions and operate on its own in deep space. And our team has built the technology here in the UAE. The mission may still be ahead, but we have expanded what we know how to build. This is how we can solve problems.

269 ​​Justitia is among the reddest bodies ever observed in the main asteroid belt. Its spectra are more similar to objects in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune than to neighboring asteroids, suggesting that they may have formed in the cold outer Solar System, beyond the range of frozen methane and methanol, before migrating inward early in the Solar System’s history to their current orbits in the main asteroid belt. The surface is thought to be covered with complex organic matter produced by the irradiation of the ice. Reaching such a body without a decade-long journey to the Kuiper Belt itself gives the international scientific community access to material that cannot be reached in practice, and evidence related to the distribution of water and volatiles when the planet was formed.

said: “EMA Probe demonstrates what can be done when advanced research is translated into mission-ready engineering. Our team at TII has developed a system designed to withstand extreme conditions, operate with incredible precision, and transmit useful science billions of kilometers from Earth. The mission reflects not only the caliber of our talent, but the depth of scientific and engineering capabilities for some of the United Arab Emirates’ space ambitions.

The MBR Explorer spacecraft will travel approximately 5 billion kilometers over eight years, using gravity-assisted maneuvers on Venus, Earth and Mars, and conducting close encounters with six asteroids before reaching 269 Justitia. The spacecraft is scheduled to launch from Japan in March 2028 in a narrow three-week launch window suited to interplanetary conditions. Since the spacecraft itself cannot safely approach within a few kilometers of the surface, the probe will separate, make contact with the surface, and send the closest observation to the mission.

said: “The engineering challenge is not only reaching Justice, but ensuring the probe can survive the eight-year journey and still perform precisely when it is most important. Every element – from the hardware and thermal design to the onboard software – has been engineered and tested to meet the end.”

The probe operates autonomously during its mission, receiving no commands from Earth or the MBR Explorer spacecraft after launch. The onboard software determines when to image, the number of images to be taken, and which to maintain, the capabilities of which are in the digital processing unit designed and developed by TII – the board that handles probe processing, image selection and power management. The investigation did not wait until the arrival of Justice to begin; It was imaged throughout the cruise along with the rest of the spacecraft’s payload, sending data back at roughly six-month intervals. Two cameras, one wide-field and one narrow-field, capture contextual and high-resolution data.

said: “What makes this probe special is the level of independence engineered into such a compact system. Once deployed, it must feel, decide and operate on its own, far beyond Earth. This program has also helped train Emirati engineers and strengthen the advanced capabilities needed to build a competitive space technology ecosystem in the UAE.”