The United Arab Emirates announced the creation of its own space agency and a flight to Mars in 2021

More and more countries and nationalities are joining space research, both near-Earth space and deep space. In particular, the other day, Sheikh Mohammed Ibn Rashid al-Maktoum (Prime Minister and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates, the ruler of Dubai) announced the creation of his own space agency in the UAE.

Sheikh also announced his intention to send to Mars the first Arab spacecraft by 2021. For this purpose, the UAE is investing in the program 20 billion dirhams (this is approximately 5.44 billion dollars). Probably, the UAE will take the beaten path (repeatedly tested in a truly enormous scale construction projects): this is hiring high-quality foreign specialists, contracting companies, and creating their own space infrastructure in this way.
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In general, they don’t throw words into the UAE, and invest really huge sums of money in areas that are of interest to the Arab community. Well, as it is known, the Arabs of the specified region do have funds, and it is good that they (the funds) will invest in the development of the space sphere. I would like to hope that all this will happen in the framework of cooperation with other space agencies, as a result of which space will become even closer to humanity.

Now Sheikh Mohammed declares that "the Arabs, again, can make their contribution to science, for all of humanity."

Via HHSheikhMohammed