Menu
Latest
Menu
Latest
News

UAE celebrates 49th anniversary with a satellite launch into space

2 December 2020

The United Arab Emirates is 49 years old today. It was established on 2 December 1971, unifying seven Arab emirates into one country led by Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan. The seven - Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ras al Khaimah, Ajman, Fujeirah and Umm al Quwain maintain a measure of autonomy especially on economic issues,  whilst foreign affairs and defence are federal matters

The UAE is one of the world's successful countries, registering in the last 49 years huge progress in health and education.

Coinciding with the anniversary, a Falcon Eye 2 satellite of the United Arab Emirates, using a Russian Soyuz-ST-A rocket, lifted off from the Kourou space center in French Guiana on Wednesday, according to a live broadcast by Arianespace. Falcon Eye 2 and the Fregat booster separated from the rocket approximately nine minutes into the flight.

The satellite was put into its designated geosynchronous orbit at the average altitude of about 611 kilometers. The entire mission lasted about one hour.

According to Arianespace, FalconEye is "a high performance optical Earth observation satellite system for the Armed Forces of the United Arab Emirates (UAEAF) manufactured by the consortium of Airbus Defence and Space and Thales Alenia Space." It will also be used for imaging the Earth surface for commercial projects.

In a message for the national day being celebrated on 2 December,  Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi said the anniversary "marks a milestone in its history during which it stands with pride and full of determination to continue its progress and achievements across various fields." Sheikh Mohamed said that the country's achievements have never stopped despite challenges along the way, which confirms that the UAE's development experience is exceptional and unmatched worldwide.

source: commonspace.eu with Emirates News Agency (Abu Dhabi), TASS (Moscow) and other media outlets

photo: The Kouru Space Centre in French Guiana from where a Russian rocket propelled an Emirati satellite into space on 2 December 2020. (picture courtesy of TASS, Moscow)

Related articles

Editor's choice
News
Sanction Israel: More than one hundred former British and French diplomats make public call for safeguarding the rule of law
Trending

Sanction Israel: More than one hundred former British and French diplomats make public call for safeguarding the rule of law

23 August 2026
In response to Israel's policy of occupation and destruction, around one hundred former representatives of France and the United Kingdom urge their governments to act through a series of sanctions aimed at safeguarding the rule of law. A coalition of 102 former French and British diplomats is calling on their countries to jointly sanction Israel, warning in an open letter that Israeli policy in occupied Palestinian territory threatens to permanently erase the possibility of a Palestinian state. France and the United Kingdom “must act together to uphold international law in Palestine”, said the letter published on Saturday by French outlet Le Monde. It urged the two governments to push for “equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians”. The signatories include former British ambassadors to the United Nations, Jeremy Greenstock and Emyr Jones Parry, and former French Middle East directors, Yves Aubin de la Messuziere and Denis Bauchard, drawing on decades of diplomatic postings across the region. “Palestinian house demolitions and rampant settler violence – with the connivance of the Israeli army and police – amount to ethnic cleansing,” said the letter. “The world no longer sees Israel as a genuine democracy,” it added. Such language, said Nicholas Hopton, a former UK ambassador to Iran, Qatar and Yemen and one of the signatories, was not invented by the diplomats themselves. “The words are not our own,” he told Al Jazeera. “They are taken from the international legal bodies, the UN, those who have been observing from a neutral position and with expertise.” (click image to read in full)
Editor's choice
News
Russian attacks against Ukrainian civilians continue
Trending

Russian attacks against Ukrainian civilians continue

22 August 2026
Rescuers in Ukraine are continuing their search for survivors in the wreckage of a big shopping centre hit by Russia on Friday. Sixteen people were killed and 130 injured when two drones hit the busy centre in Kryvyi Rih in quick succession in what is known as a double-tap strike. Four people are still missing. The search and rescue operation could last for another two days. President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the "cynical and despicable" attack in which the second drone targeted emergency workers. The sides exchanged more fire overnight, with Ukrainian attacks said to have killed at least four people in Russia, including two children, and three people reported dead by Kyiv as a result of Russian strikes. The death toll from Friday's attack reached 16 after another body was retrieved from the rubble overnight, said Dnipropetrovsk regional head Oleksandr Hanzha. "We're doing everything possible to speed up... the search and rescue operation," he told Ukrainian TV on Saturday morning. (click image tio read more)

Popular

Editor's choice
Interview
Thursday Interview: Murad Muradov
Trending

Thursday Interview: Murad Muradov

15 January 2026
Today, commonspace.eu starts a new regular weekly series. THURSDAY INTERVIEW, conducted by Lauri Nikulainen, will host  persons who are thinkers, opinion shapers, and implementors in their countries and spheres. We start the series with an interview with Murad Muradov, a leading person in Azerbaijan's think tank community. He is also the first co-chair of the Action Committee for a new Armenian-Azerbaijani Dialogue. Last September he made history by being the first Azerbaijani civil society activist to visit Armenia after the 44 day war, and the start of the peace process. Speaking about this visit Murad Muradov said: "My experience was largely positive. My negative expectations luckily didn’t play out. The discussions were respectful, the panel format bringing together experts from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey was particularly valuable during the NATO Rose-Roth Seminar in Yerevan, and media coverage, while varied in tone, remained largely constructive. Some media outlets though attempted to represent me as more of a government mouthpiece than an independent expert, which was totally misleading.  Overall, I see these initiatives as important steps in rebuilding trust and normalising professional engagement. The fact that soon a larger Azerbaijani civil society visits to Armenia followed, reinforces the sense that this process is moving in the right direction." (click the image to read the interview in full)
Murad Muradov
Lauri Nikulainen interviews Murad Muradov