The Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander, developed by Japanese private company ispace, has sent back its first image of the Moon from lunar orbit, carrying the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) Rashid rover. The spacecraft entered lunar orbit on March 20, 2023, after a journey of over 100 days, and will attempt to land on the Moon in late April. If successful, it would be ispace’s first commercial cargo mission to the Moon, and the UAE’s first lunar mission, making it the first Arab nation to achieve such a feat.
The Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander is equipped with a camera that captured the image of the Moon, which was shared on ispace’s Twitter account. The company expressed excitement for the upcoming mission, saying “Hello from lunar orbit! After last week’s successful lunar orbital insertion maneuver, this image of the Moon was captured by our lander-mounted camera during Hakuto-R Mission 1. More stunning views to come!”
The spacecraft was launched on December 11, 2022, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, and has traveled over one million kilometers to reach the Moon. Lunar landings are a difficult feat to accomplish, as there is no atmosphere on the Moon to slow down spacecraft, requiring complex maneuvers to reduce the speed of the lander to make a soft landing. Only three nations, the US, former Soviet Union, and China, have successfully performed soft landings on the Moon, while landers from India and Israel have crashed.
Once the Rashid rover lands on the Moon, it will begin a two-week mission to explore and capture data on the lunar surface. The rover is equipped with several instruments that will enable Emirati engineers to study the properties of lunar soil, the petrography and geology of the Moon, dust movement, surface plasma conditions, and the Moon’s photoelectron sheath. The mission will pave the way for the UAE’s long-term lunar exploration program and is an important step towards the nation’s goal of establishing a human settlement on the Moon by 2030.
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