The moon, which is said to have been a dream of yesteryear, has become a reality for many space powers. The United Arab Emirates, which announced last September their intention to launch the Rashid rover by 2024 on the moon has finally advanced it to 2022. “Rashid“, an Emirati-made lunar rover, named after the late Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, will therefore be launched next year, two years earlier than planned.
Prototype testing will begin this summer. Dr Hamad Al Marzooqi, UAE Lunar Mission Project Manager at MBRSC, said “over 50% of the prototype components are ready. “From September to March (next year), we should complete development and testing of the flight model and the rover will be ready for launch next year. “.
It “will be transported by an iSpace machine” during a mission in 2022, said the Japanese firm. iSpace, a private Japanese lunar robotic exploration company, confirmed the news and planned to send the United Arab Emirates rover to the Moon in 2022, as part of the development of their space program, this Wednesday at a meeting press release jointly held with Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC), a Japanese private robotic lunar exploration company that will transport Rashid to the moon.
If between February and March the conquest of space or at least Martian was not as competitive with the putting into orbit, of its Emirati probe Al-Amal (Hope or Hope) followed, 24 hours later by the Chinese probe Tianwen 1 and the he arrival on the red planet of the Perseverance rover, the world has its eyes riveted on Mars, it is above all and more surely towards the Moon that the possibilities and ambitions are most tangible and whet the appetites of several space nations. like the UAE. The latter country with this launch project shows that it is indeed in the space race where it plays in the court of the happy few.
However, the iSpace company, founded in 2010, intends to use the Falcon 9 rocket of the SpaceX company of billionaire Elon Musk – which will be the first mission to the Moon – to send the Rashid rover. SpaceX should take off from Florida in the United States (Cape Carnaveral). The exact landing site has yet to be revealed, but the rover will travel to a part of the moon that has never been reached before. Its mission is to better understand how lunar dust and rocks vary across the moon.
Rashid will be equipped with advanced technologies, including a 3D camera, an advanced motion system, sensors, a microscope camera and a thermal camera as well as a state-of-the-art communication system. Once on the surface of the moon, it will run on solar panels. Its four cameras will move vertically and horizontally. It will also be equipped with sensors and systems to analyze the properties of soil, dust, radioactivity, electrical activities and rocks on the moon’s surface. Rashid will have the distinction of being the smallest rover to have landed on the moon. This lunar rover will be the lightest to explore the moon, it is 70 cm high and weighs around 10 kg with its payload. The length of Rashid is 50 cm just like its width elsewhere.