UNITED STATES: A Japanese lander and the United Arab Emirates rover were part of a private mission to the moon that SpaceX launched on Sunday. From Cape Canaveral in Florida, a Falcon 9 rocket took off.
Its measurements are slightly over 2-2.5 meters, and it is furnished with a Rashid Rover, which weighs ten kilogrammes and was made in the UAE.
Despite being a relative newcomer to the space competition, the oil-rich country has recently achieved success, including sending a Mars mission in 2020. Rashid Rover’s victory will mark the first successful Arab Moon mission.
The international Google Lunar XPrize competition, which sought to put a rover on the moon by the year 2018, had five finalists, including a Japanese lander named Hakuto.
By constructing a space station in orbit around the moon and a base on its surface, the US space agency, NASA, hopes to advance the lunar economy in the ensuing years.
It has awarded contracts to several companies to develop landers that will conduct a scientific study on the moon.
Among them, the American companies Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines plan to launch in 2023 and, if they take a more direct path, may beat Ispace to the finish line.
Although iSpace has become the first commercial company to undertake a moon landing mission, other missions scheduled to launch early next year may actually reach the moon first due to their longer flights.
The collision of the Beresheet spacecraft with the moon and subsequent destruction prevented Israeli non-profit SpaceIL’s attempt to reach the moon in 2019 as part of the Google competition.
The US, Russia, and China were the only countries to successfully conduct “soft landings” on the moon, with the US being the only country to send astronauts there.
Also Read: Red Planet Day: Spotlight on Mariner 4, the First Spacecraft to Reach Mars
