Important Facts For Prelims
UAE’s Moon Mission
- 30 Sep 2020
- 3 min read
Why in News
Recently, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has decided to send an unmanned spacecraft to the moon in 2024.
Key Points
- Name: The rover would be named Rashid after Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, one of the original founding rulers of the UAE.
- Rover is a vehicle for exploring the surface of a planet or moon.
- Aim: The rover will explore the surface of the moon in areas that have not been explored previously by human missions such as NASA’s Apollo.
- Participating in the moon exploration is part of the UAE’s space strategy to build new knowledge capabilities and advance the country’s scientific, technical and research environment.
- Fourth Nation: If successful in 2024, the UAE could become the fourth nation to land a spacecraft on the moon after the USA, the former Soviet Union and China.
- India, Israel and Japan have tried but failed in landing a spacecraft on the moon.
- Planned to land on the South Pole of the Moon, Chandrayaan-2 was launched by India in 2019. However, the lander Vikram hard-landed, which crushed India's dream to become the first nation to successfully touch down on the lunar surface in its maiden attempt.
- India has planned a new moon mission named Chandrayaan-3. It is likely to be launched in early 2021. It will be a mission repeat of Chandrayaan-2 and will include a Lander and Rover similar to that of Chandrayaan-2, but will not have an orbiter.
- Artemis is a crewed spaceflight program of NASA that has the goal of landing "the first woman and the next man" on the Moon, specifically at the lunar south pole region by 2024.
- India, Israel and Japan have tried but failed in landing a spacecraft on the moon.
UAE’s Space Mission
- In July 2020, the UAE launched a Mars probe named Amal (Hope) from Japan, marking the Arab world’s first interplanetary mission.
- Amal is set to reach Mars in February 2021, the year UAE will celebrate 50 years of its formation.
- UAE has also set a goal to build a human colony on Mars by 2117.
- UAE is a federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula.
- In 2019, the UAE sent its first astronaut to the International Space Station.
