Sarah bint Yousif Al Amiri, a computer engineer and also the country’s first Minister of State for Advanced Sciences, leads the research mission as deputy project manager.
Al Amiri, 33 years old and born in Iran, is one of the world’s youngest ministers and is also the youngest to head a space agency.
She received an M.Sc. in computer engineering from the same university in 2014, while at the same time, serving as Head of Space Science at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre, where she set up and worked as Director of the Research and Development Unit.
She worked against the country’s goal of developing a “knowledge-based economy” as part of the organization. Plans to establish a human settlement on Mars by 2117 are included in the goals. The country aims to construct a ‘scientific city’ in the deserts of Dubai to simulate Martian conditions in order to promote training and study.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) recently succeeded, along with India and the EU, in the first attempt to insert a spacecraft into orbit around Mars. The mission was announced in 2014 and on February 9, the Hope probe was successful in entering the planet’s orbit.
