The United Arab Emirates has made history as the first Arab country to reach Mars.

It has put a probe called Hope in orbit around the planet, making it only the fifth spacefaring entity to do so after the US, the Soviet Union, Europe and India.

The Emirates Mars mission, named the Hope probe, reached the red planet at 7:42 p.m. Tuesday UAE time, and sent its signal back to Earth just over half an hour later. The ground control team at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai erupted in cheers.

“204 days and more than 480 million kms later, the #HopeProbe is now in the Capture Orbit of #Mars,” the official Twitter account of the Hope Mars Mission tweeted shortly afterward, with the hashtag #ArabsToMars.

The feat is monumental. Experts estimated the chance of successfully entering Mars’ orbit at about 50%, since more than half of all Mars missions actually fail.

The United Arab Emirates’ first mission to Mars has entered the red planet’s orbit after a seven-month, 494 million kilometres (307 million miles) journey, allowing it to start sending data about the Martian atmosphere and climate.

Officials at mission control broke into applause on Tuesday, visibly relieved after a tense half-hour as Amal, Arabic for hope, carried out a “burn” to slow itself enough to be pulled in by the Martian gravity.

UAE scientists can now look forward to studying the planet's atmosphere.

Their satellite carries three instruments that will observe, among other targets, how neutral atoms of hydrogen and oxygen - remnants from Mars' once abundant water - leak into space.

In the process, Hope will return spectacular, high-resolution, full-disk images of the planet.

The past few days have witnessed tremendous enthusiasm for Hope and its mission, with public monuments, buildings and heritage sites across the federation all lit up in red.

Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the tallest human-made structure on Earth, had been flashing a countdown to Tuesday's big moment.

Hope is regarded as a triumph for a small gulf nation that dared to think seven years ago that it could inspire the next generation by launching the first Arab interplanetary space mission.