UAE unveils asteroid probe for 2028 deep-space launch

The United Arab Emirates showed off its finished asteroid probe on Sunday. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Dubai's crown prince, attended the unveiling himself. The spacecraft is called MBR Explorer. It's built for a wild trip: nearly 5 billion kilometers, past seven asteroids, ending at one called 269 Justitia. Launch is targeted for March 2028.

Pulling off a seven-asteroid tour puts the UAE in genuinely rare company. Only a handful of space agencies have tried anything this complex. Justitia stands out because it's unusually red, which scientists think means it's rich in water and organic material. Ambitious interplanetary missions like this one often slip their launch dates before liftoff.

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Will the March 2028 launch date actually hold? Interplanetary missions routinely slip by months or years once engineers hit real hardware problems. The bigger test comes later, when the probe has to track down and study an asteroid millions of kilometers away. No ground controllers can help it in real time.