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New Delhi,UPDATED: Apr 25, 2023 14:21 IST

By India Today Science Desk: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is all set to make history as it awaits the landing of its Rashid rover on the surface of the Moon onboard the world's first private mission to the Moon, Hakuto-R.

The private Japanese mission will attempt the lunar landing on Tuesday to get its name in history books. The Hakutor-R mission arrived in lunar orbit about a month ago and has since been orbiting the Moon, getting closer. The spacecraft will now begin a 100-kilometer descent to the surface of the Moon.

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The Rashid rover was launched to the Moon in December 2022 blasting off atop a SpaceX rocket. It took nearly five months for the Japanese lander and its experiments to reach the moon, covering 1.6 million kilometers in the vacuum of space.

The Hakuto-R mission is carrying UAE's first lunar mission to attempt a landing on the surface. The Rashid rover, developed by the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC) in Dubai, is neatly packed inside the Hakuto-R lander and is heading to the Moon on a low-energy trajectory.

The Rashid rover has been designed by Emirati scientists to demonstrate lunar surface transportation and mobility. The four-wheeled rover with differential gear can move at a top speed of 10 centimeters per second and climb an obstacle height of 10 centimeters with a slope of 20 degrees.

The 10-kilogram rover is equipped with two cameras to ensure panoramic visibility of the rover's surroundings. The rear-mounted CASPEX camera will deliver images of the lunar soil with high spatial resolution. The cameras will be used to investigate the detailed wheel-soil interaction on the Moon. The microscopic imager on Rashid will obtain the highest resolution image of the lunar surface to study the topmost layer of the lunar regolith.

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The rover will also study the plasma around the Moon to help understand how charged particles interact with the lunar surface. Scientists will also investigate the interaction of the rovers surface materials with solar radiation.

Named after the late Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, the builder of modern Dubai, Rashid is part of the UAEs broader strategy to become a major player in the field of space exploration. If the moon mission succeeds, the UAE and Japan would join the ranks of only the US, Russia, and China as nations that have put a spacecraft on the lunar surface.

The UAE has plans to develop the Middle Easts most advanced commercial satellite to produce high-resolution satellite imagery. It has also set the ambitious goal of building a human colony on Mars by 2117. The UAE has already succeeded with its Mars mission as the Hope probe continues to deliver key findings around the Red Planet.

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Meet Rashid, the Emirati rover set to land on Moon with Japan's Hakuto-R lander today - India Today