{"id":245270,"date":"2026-10-12T21:03:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T02:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/uae-unveils-lander-for-bold-7-asteroid-mission-set-to-launch-in-2028-photos"},"modified":"2026-10-12T21:03:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T02:03:17","slug":"uae-unveils-lander-for-bold-7-asteroid-mission-set-to-launch-in-2028-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/uae-unveils-lander-for-bold-7-asteroid-mission-set-to-launch-in-2028-photos","title":{"rendered":"UAE unveils lander for bold 7-asteroid mission set to launch in 2028 (photos)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/uae-unveils-lander-for-bold-7-asteroid-mission-set-to-launch-in-2028-photos2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t know what we\u2019re going to find \u2014 that\u2019s exploration,\u201d Tsoutsanis told reporters. \u201cWe\u2019re really excited.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to the mission plan, the MBR Explorer will spend roughly seven months studying 269 Justitia from orbit. Beginning at an altitude of 155 miles (250 km), the spacecraft will gradually lower its path before releasing the lander. The smaller probe will then head toward the asteroid\u2019s surface, a descent that should take two to three hours depending on 269 Justitia\u2019s precise gravity, which remains unknown.<\/p>\n<p>Although TII describes the mission ending with a landing on the surface of 269 Justitia, the engineering details suggest a more violent endgame. Cruising toward the asteroid\u2019s surface at 15 to 27 meters per second (34 to 60 mph) with no meaningful way to slow down, the probe will function less like a traditional lander and more like a planned impactor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t know what we\u2019re going to find \u2014 that\u2019s exploration,\u201d Tsoutsanis told reporters. \u201cWe\u2019re really excited.\u201d According to the mission plan, the MBR Explorer will spend roughly seven months studying 269 Justitia from orbit. Beginning at an altitude of 155 miles (250 km), the spacecraft will gradually lower its path before releasing the lander. [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engineering","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}