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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched on Sunday from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, carrying into space the first ever Arab-built lunar spacecraft.
The Rashid Rover was built by Dubai’s Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC), in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and is being delivered by the HAKUTO-R lander, engineered by Japanese lunar exploration company ispace. If the landing is successful, HAKUTO-R will also become the first commercial spacecraft ever to make a controlled landing on the moon.
The mission is taking a low energy route to the moon and is due to arrive around April 2023. Once there, the rover will spend one lunar day (equivalent to 14.75 days on Earth) on the surface, conducting its main operations. It will spend a second lunar day conducting secondary operations, to check whether the rover will survive the moon’s tough nighttime environment, before decommissioning.
Scheduled to touch down in the Atlas crater the northeast part of the moon, the rover has been designed to withstand the lunar night, when temperatures can reach as low as -183°C, or -297.4°F.
