The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is all prepared to create history as it awaits the landing of its Rashid rover on the surface of the Moon onboard the world’s first private mission to the Moon, Hakuto-R. This mission will be the first time a spacecraft has been sent to the Moon by a private company.
On Tuesday, a private Japanese mission will make an attempt to land on the moon in the hopes of writing its name into the annals of history.
About a month ago, the Hakutor-R mission entered lunar orbit, and ever since then, it has been orbiting the Moon and coming ever closer to the surface of the moon. The spaceship will now begin a descent to the surface of the Moon that will take one hundred kilometers.
In December of 2022, a SpaceX rocket carried the Rashid lunar rover to the Moon after it had been launched into space. After traveling almost 1.6 million kilometers into the void of space, the Japanese lander and the experiments it carried arrived at the moon after roughly five months of travel time.
What Is the Rashid Rover of the UAE?
The United Arab Emirates’ first trip to the moon, which will aim to land on the lunar surface, is being carried by the Hakuto-R mission.
The Rashid rover, which was constructed by the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC) in Dubai, is tidily packed up within the Hakuto-R lander and is currently in the process of being transported to the Moon via a low-energy trajectory.
Scientists from the United Arab Emirates have developed the Rashid rover in order to show transportation and mobility on the lunar surface. The differential gear on the four-wheeled rover enables it to go at a maximum speed of 10 centimeters per second and scale obstacles with a height of 10 centimeters while negotiating a slope of 20 degrees.
WHAT ACTIVITIES WILL RASHID ENGAGE IN WHILE ON THE MOON?
The rover, which weighs 10 kilograms, is fitted with two cameras, each of which provides a panoramic view of the rover’s surroundings. The high spatial resolution photos of the lunar soil will be delivered by the CASPEX camera that is positioned on the spacecraft’s back.
On the moon, the cameras will be utilized to investigate in greater detail the interaction between the wheels and the surface. In order to investigate the uppermost layer of the lunar regolith, the Rashid spacecraft’s tiny imager will acquire an image of the moon’s surface with the highest possible resolution.
In addition to this, the rover will investigate the plasma that surrounds the Moon in order to gain a better understanding of how charged particles interact with the surface of the moon. In addition to this, researchers will look into how the surface materials of the rover react when exposed to solar radiation.
Rashid is a component of the United Arab Emirates’ greater ambition to become a prominent participant in the field of space exploration. It was named after the late Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, who is credited with building the modern city of Dubai. In the event that the moon mission is successful, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Japan will join the ranks of only the United States, Russia, and China as nations that have successfully landed a spacecraft on the surface of the moon.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is planning to build the most advanced commercial satellite in the Middle East in order to produce high-resolution satellite imagery. Additionally, it has set the lofty objective of establishing a human colony on Mars by the year 2117. The United Arab Emirates’ mission to Mars has already been a huge success, and the Hope probe is still making important discoveries all over the red planet.