The United Arab Emirates estimates the chances of its first lunar rover successfully landing on the moon surface stand at 50% maximum, with the landing scheduled for Tuesday evening, the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center has said
DOHA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th April, 2023) The United Arab Emirates estimates the chances of its first lunar rover successfully landing on the moon surface stand at 50% maximum, with the landing scheduled for Tuesday evening, the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center has said.
"We start a historic week for the Emirati and Arab space sector. Tomorrow (on Tuesday), the 1st Arab mission to the Moon is set to landing with a success rate of 50%," Salem Al Marri, the director general of the center, said on Twitter.
The mission may face several challenges, including the derailing of the lander carrying the Rashid Rover from its trajectory, loss of communication, a harsh landing and the specifics of the lunar surface, such as craters and boulders, the center added.
Sultan Al Neyadi, an UAE astronaut currently working at the International Space Station, wished good luck to his colleagues from the space center, calling the first Arab lunar mission a difficult task.
Named after the late Sheikh Rashid Al Saeed, the Rashid Rover was produced in the UAE, it weighs 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and was delivered into orbit by the HAKUTO-R lander from the Cape Canaveral space launch site in December 2022. The rover is solar-powered and equipped with two cameras, a microscope and a thermal imager.
It is expected to land on the north-east part of the visible side of the moon near the so-called Lake of Dreams. If the landing is successful, the UAE will become the fourth country (after the United States, Russia and China) to launch a lunar rover to the moon. In this case, the space vehicle will transmit photos of the lunar surface to the Earth and carry out experiments over 10 days.
