United Arab Emirates to launch first lunar rover in November

The United Arab Emirates will launch its first lunar rover in November, the mission supervisor stated Monday.

Hamad Al Marzooqi advised The Nationwide, a state-linked newspaper, that the “Rashid” rover, named for Dubai’s ruling household, can be launched from the Kennedy Area Middle in Florida someday between Nov. 9 and Nov. 15. The precise date might be introduced subsequent month, he stated.

The rover is to be launched aboard a Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket and deposited on the moon by a Japanese ispace lander someday in March.

“We have completed with the testing of the rover and we’re proud of the outcomes,” Al Marzooqi was quoted as saying. “The rover has been built-in with the lander and it’s prepared for launch.”

The lunar mission is a part of the UAE’s broader technique to grow to be a significant participant within the subject of space exploration. If the moon mission succeeds, the UAE and Japan would be a part of the ranks of solely the U.S., Russia and China as nations which have put a spacecraft on the lunar floor.

Already, an Emirati satellite is orbiting Mars to check the pink planet’s environment. The UAE partnered with Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to launch that probe, which swung into Mars’ orbit in February 2021.

The Rashid rover is predicted to check the lunar surface, mobility on the moon’s floor and the way completely different surfaces work together with lunar particles. The ten-kilogram (22-pound) rover will carry two high-resolution cameras, a microscopic digicam, a thermal imagery digicam, a probe and different units.

The UAE has plans to develop the Center East’s most superior business satellite to provide high-resolution satellite imagery. It has additionally set the formidable objective of constructing a human colony on Mars by 2117.

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