UAE’s lunar lander team ready to build final version of Rashid rover
Emirati engineers are to begin assembly of the final version of a rover designed to land on the Moon’s surface next year.
A prototype of the Rashid rover was on display at Dubai Airshow yesterday.
The tiny robot will be carried to the Moon aboard a lander built by a Japanese company called ispace.
SpaceX will carry the entire mission package into space on its Falcon 9 rocket.
Dr Hamad Al Marzooqi, project manager of the Emirates Lunar Mission, said that their deadline to deliver the final version of the rover, which is known as the flight model, to ispace is in April.
“This model gave us the green light to start manufacturing, integrating and testing the flight model. This will start by mid-December,” he told The National.
“We’ve already received a lot of components for the flight model. Integration and testing will last from [the] end of March to mid-April.
“Then, we’ll finish in order to ship the flight model to the integration facility of the lander.”
ispace’s Hakuto-R lander voyage to the Moon will be its maiden flight.
A growing number of private companies are looking to achieve landings on the Moon as exploration efforts focus there. A demonstration of a company’s capabilities helpsin bidding for contracts from government-run space agencies.
Dr Al Marzooqi said his team is in regular contact with ispace about the readiness of the lander and the launch of the mission.
“They are progressing very well,” he said. “We are in close contact with them and we are following them every almost every week.
“We are happy with what we are they are doing and they are on track.
“Everyone is competing to be the first commercial lander to land on the surface of the Moon.
“Success by any commercial lander will give a boost to everyone,” he said.
“Yes, there’s a risk depending highly on a commercial lander, but we’ve been taking risks since the beginning and we hope for the best.”
Dr Al Marzooqi said staff are already working on another lunar rover as a back-up plan and on the UAE’s long-term Moon exploration efforts. The Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre was ordered by the UAE government to achieve a lunar landing by 2024, and an earlier flight through ispace was secured.
“To increase our chances, we are doing it this way. So, we are working on the next and the next rover,” Dr Al Marzooqi said.
“We will not put all our eggs in one basket,” he said.
“However, we are happy with ispace’s progress. But, landing on the surface of the Moon is something very risky – even very advanced institutional agencies cannot guarantee success for landing and we have seen failures in the past couple of years.”
Only the US, the former Soviet Union and China have landed on the Moon.
In the early space exploration era, there was a very high rate of failure, especially by the Soviet Union.
In 2019, India’s Vikram lander crash-landed on the Moon because of a software glitch.
Israel’s Beresheet spacecraft also crashed on the surface that year.