UAE’s historic mission to the moon’s surface is ready to launch today
Rashid Rover, the first UAE mission to the moon, was carried on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for its historic launch on Wednesday.
Alarabiya reports that the four-wheeled rover has completed its final docking with the Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander – which will depart from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 12:39 pm in the United Arab Emirates.
Residents of the United Arab Emirates will be able to watch the launch live online by SpaceX. This is the UAE’s first lunar mission, and more rovers will be produced in the future.
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The Rashid rover – built by Emirati engineers from the United Arab Emirates’ Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC) – will be sent to an undiscovered region of the moon.
As part of the Emirates lunar mission, the 10-kilogram robotic explorer will return images and collect data on lunar soil and dust once it lands on the moon’s surface. Over the past five months, the rover has been exposed to rigorous internal and external testing.
The test is designed to test several systems and each subsystem of the rover during the launch phase, cruise phase and descent phase. Last year, the ELM rover completed assembly and the first round of full-scale operational testing of the flight model at the MBRSC laboratory.
This testing process includes testing all hardware and software in all possible scenarios (months). The process also includes rigorous vibration testing of the model at EDGE’s Abu Dhabi-based Electro-Optical Center of Excellence (EOCE) laboratory.
In the second phase, the Rashid rover performed several environmental tests in Toulouse, France. This includes two parts of the evaluation: the first is the final test of thermal and vacuum at the Airbus factory, in which the rover is heated and cooled to increase the pressure and temperature of its journey through space and n ‘the surface of the moon.
The second and final part of the environmental test includes severe vibration and shock testing of the aircraft model at the CNES laboratory. For this, the rover was forced onto a vibrating table that simulates the environment the rover will encounter when it launches aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and is also placed on a track the body it will get when it bounces in the air. of input and touch.
The test campaign ended in Germany with the final phase of verification of the interfaces on the ground that will bring the rover safely to the surface of the moon. This process also includes the verification of the design of the equipment, such as the display system, and the final test of the performance of the integrated system following the environmental campaign.
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Dr. Hamad al-Marzooqi, Project Manager of the Emirates Lunar Mission, said earlier this year: “MBRSC is looking forward to seeing the Rashid rover begin its long-awaited flight to the Moon.
The science and technology of this information will help us answer important questions about astronomy and the surface of the moon that we have been working on for many years, and we are happy to share our journey with the world.
The main purpose of this mission is to study lunar plasma and provide answers on lunar dust, lunar surface, motion on lunar surface and how different surfaces interact with lunar particles.
