DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – The United Arab Emirates plans to send an unmanned spacecraft to the moon in 2024, said on Tuesday a senior Emirati official, the latest bet on the stars across the oil-rich country that may be only the fourth country. Earth to achieve that goal.
The announcement through Dubai leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who is also vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, shows the immediate expansion of the area program that bears his name. to Mars, while last year he sent his first astronaut to the International Space Station.
“It will be an Emirati-made lunar vehicle that will land on the moon’s surface in 2024 in spaces that have still been explored through human missions,” Sheikh Mohammed wrote on Twitter.
He did not specify where they planned to explore the United Arab Emirates or how he would launch the rover into space. The launch of its Amal spacecraft, or “Hope” on Mars, took place at the Japanese Space Center in Tanegashima in July. , who introduced the probe, said there was nothing about the lunar vehicle launch and refused to comment when he was contacted through The Associated Press.
The Emirati rover will analyze the lunar surface, mobility on the moon’s surface and how other surfaces interact with lunar particles, the government later said. The 10 kilogram (22 lb) rover will bring two high-resolution cameras, a microscopic camera, a thermal imaging camera, a probe and other devices, he said.
Sheikh Mohammed said the rover would be called “Rashid”, the same call as his father, Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum. Sheikh Rashid, one of the first founding rulers of the United Arab Emirates, a federation of seven sheikhs of the Arabian Peninsula.
Sheikh Mohammed made the announcement on Twitter after a closed-door assembly with officials, where photographs of the state media assembly showed him and others dressed in masks due to the coronavirus pandemic.
If successful in 2024, the United Arab Emirates could be the fourth country on Earth to land a spacecraft on the Moon, after the United States, the Soviet Union and China. India tried and failed to land a spacecraft last year. Israel also saw its own. A small spacecraft crashed into the lunar surface last year before landing, failing in an ambitious attempt to make history as the first privately funded lunar landing.
In July, the United Arab Emirates Amal probe, introduced from Japan, remains on its way to Mars and is expected to succeed on the Red Planet in February 2021, when the UAE celebrates the 50th anniversary of the country’s formation. Amal will begin transmitting Martian atmospheric data, which will be available to the foreign clinical community, authorities said.
A successful project for the Moon would be a major milestone for the oil-dependent economy in search of a long-term space.
The UAE has also set itself the purpose of building a human colony on Mars until 2117.
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