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That's not the Moon, it's Planet Earth: First images from lander carrying UAE's Rashid Rover released

The images are considered a major milestone from a technological standpoint

Published: Wed 14 Dec 2022, 5:38 PM

Updated: Thu 15 Dec 2022, 9:58 AM

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ispace, a global lunar exploration company, announced on Wednesday that it has successfully taken images and transmitted them to the Hakuto-R Mission Control Centre (MCC).

ispace's camera, located on top of the lander, will continue to record images throughout the mission. The lander continues to maintain a stable attitude and power supply.

The images are considered a major milestone from a technological standpoint. In addition to the in-house development of an optical camera that can withstand the space environment, many of the lander's own technological elements were also involved in the acquisition of this image data, including attitude control to aim the camera at the target and communications to transmit the image data to Earth.

ispace is the payload delivery service for UAE's ambitious Emirates Lunar Mission, under which the Rashid rover is being transported to the Moon on the lander.

During its mission, the Lunar Rover will conduct numerous scientific tests on the surface of the Moon that will contribute to making qualitative developments in the fields of science, communication technologies, and robotics. Furthermore, the impact of these developments will extend beyond the space sector and into various vital sectors in the national and global economy.

The Rashid rover is four wheeled with differential gear. It can travel at a maximum speed at 10 cm/s, can navigate obstacles of height 10 cm and can climb a slope of 20 degrees

ispace's plan

In the mid-term, ispace plans to collect and process various lunar data (image data, environmental data, telemetry, resource information, etc.) and provide them to clients for use in lunar surface development.

ispace has further successfully acquired images taken by one of the cameras of the Canadensys lunar imaging system: one of our Mission 1 payloads. This is an image showing the Earth and the launch vehicle’s second stage, taken about 2 minutes after the lander separated from the rocket. The imaging system is mounted on the sides of the lander and will periodically take images throughout the mission.

The lander is navigating about 440,000 km from the Earth as of 16:00 on December 14, 2022 (JST) and has already passed through the lunar orbit once. The customer payloads being transported by Mission 1 are currently being checked out individually, with some already confirmed. Success 3 of the Mission 1 Milestones will be achieved after completion of all customer payload check-outs.

Ongoing operations are being carried out to determine the optimal timing for the initial orbit control manoeuvre, which is planned to result in the achievement of Success 4. ispace will share updates on Hakuto-R Mission 1 as they become available.

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