Engineers at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) are now preparing for the next ‘critical stages’ of the first Emirates Lunar Mission (ELM), following the successful launch of the UAE-made Rashid Rover on December 11.
The Moon-bound rover is safely stored at a special compartment of the Japanese lunar lander Hakuto-R that is currently 500,000 kilometres away from Earth, 10 days after it was sent to space on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA.
Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/uae/science/video-uaes-rashid-rover-ready-for-next-critical-stage-of-moon-landing-1.92816165
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#UAEnews #moon #moonlanding
The Moon-bound rover is safely stored at a special compartment of the Japanese lunar lander Hakuto-R that is currently 500,000 kilometres away from Earth, 10 days after it was sent to space on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA.
Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/uae/science/video-uaes-rashid-rover-ready-for-next-critical-stage-of-moon-landing-1.92816165
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV
#UAEnews #moon #moonlanding
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NewsTranscript
00:00The launch event was a major milestone of the mission.
00:10The team worked very hard during the past couple of years.
00:14It was an exciting moment.
00:16It shows that the mission is moving on,
00:19that we are launching Rashed after working on it by our hands,
00:23and then seeing it being launched into space at that day.
00:28Of course, launching into space is something very critical,
00:33and always there are risks associated with launching missions into space.
00:38We were very excited, but at the same time,
00:41we had mixed emotions of nervousness,
00:45and also we were worried about whether things will go as planned or not.
00:51Thankfully, after a couple of minutes into the launch sequence,
00:57when it started, things went very well.
01:00And after 40 or 50 minutes, we received the news from Tokyo
01:06that the iSpace Mission Control Center could receive the first signal from Miranda.
01:13The mission is designed to take a low-cost trajectory towards the moon.
01:19The approach that is taken by the lander is to follow a low-cost trajectory throughout the mission.
01:27The idea is that in order to reduce the cost of the mission,
01:31to make it commercially feasible,
01:34it's important to reduce the amount of fuel to be used in order to reach the moon.
01:39There are several ways, several trajectories that you can follow
01:43and that will take you directly to the surface of the moon.
01:47However, the trajectory that was selected for the lander is a special one,
01:53where the lander already did that launch from Earth into low-Earth orbit.
02:01Then after that, it did a flyby by the moon,
02:05and now it's on its way towards the furthest point, which will be around 1.4 million kilometers.
02:14At that point, there will be a deep-space maneuver,
02:18and then there will be a turnaround,
02:21and then the lander will start its trajectory towards inserting itself into the lunar orbit.
02:27Currently, the rover aboard the lander is away from Earth at more than 500,000 kilometers.
02:36It's way beyond the moon orbit.
02:41However, that's the trajectory,
02:46and we are going to reach the furthest point from Earth at 1.4 million kilometers within the next couple of weeks.
02:57Since the announcement of His Highness Sheikh Hamza Rashid about the first contact with the rover,
03:03I'm happy to say that currently we are monitoring the health of Rashid rover on a daily basis on the current days.
03:16The team is establishing contacts with the rover on a daily basis.
03:22The rover is switched on.
03:24Telemetries are gathered and are sent back to our ground station here in Dubai.
03:29We check all the telemetries and we check the status of different subsystems.
03:35We check the thermal system and the temperature at different points on the rover,
03:40as well as we check the status of the battery and whether the battery needs charging or not.
03:46Until this point, all the data received from the rover shows that the rover is in good health,
03:53and things are stable in the rover, and that's a very good sign in our mission.
03:59There will be some critical points in the future, in the coming weeks.
04:04We are looking forward to those points, but we will keep everyone posted and updated once we reach those points.
04:13There are different challenges throughout the mission, different critical points throughout the trajectory towards the moon.
04:20One of the critical points that everyone is looking towards is the deep space maneuver that will happen at the furthest point in the trajectory,
04:32which is, as I said, at 1.4 million kilometers.
04:35At that point, we will be at the furthest point from Earth.
04:40Communication will be very slow, and also the lander will start performing deep space maneuver operations,
04:48which are very critical on the lifespan of the mission.
04:53After that, the lunar orbit insertion is another critical point where any mistake or any off-nominal operation or situation might cause us off-trajectory,
05:07and then the lander will have to do some corrections afterwards.
05:11I think the most critical point, which always causes missions to the surface to fail,
05:18which is the point where the lander will start the landing sequence and will aim to land safely on the lunar surface.
05:27That is a very important point, very critical point, and very few countries could achieve that successfully.
05:33Once that point is achieved by the lander, other critical points and milestones will start to be executed after the safe landing,
05:42which is deploying of the rover, deploying our robotic arm that carries the primary camera, and deploying our antenna, the primary antenna.
05:52Those also are critical points where eventually we will have to drive off the platform that is holding the Russian rover,
06:00and for the first time, the Russian rover will start touching the lunar surface.
06:06Those are all critical points.
06:08We are taking things step by step, and we are focusing right now on monitoring the Russian rover health,
06:15and also putting our eyes towards the next milestone, which is the deep space maneuver that is going to happen at 1.4 million kilometers.
06:24Currently, the Russian rover is inside the rover compartment inside the lander,
06:29and it's being hauled down there through an arm, a deployment arm that is holding the Russian rover inside that compartment.
06:38Once the lander safely lands on the lunar surface, the lander will deploy the arm where that arm holds the Russian rover down,
06:48and then the rover will be released towards the surface.
06:52We will have to do our own operations of deploying the mast, deploying the antenna,
06:59doing our own checkouts on the rover, making sure that all cameras, all instruments, and core systems of the rover are working properly
07:09before releasing the rover from that platform, from that arm, and then start driving off.
07:16As I said, that will be the moment where the rover wheels will start touching the lunar surface,
07:23and I think that will be the big moment of the mission where we can declare that, for the first time,
07:29UAE has reached, hopefully, and touched the lunar surface.
07:34After that, once we make sure that everything is working fine, our science operations and science mission will start,
07:42where we will follow certain trajectories set by our scientists, plans that are defined by our scientists,
07:49that will be checked by our engineers, and then will be executed by the operators.
07:54The plans will follow certain trajectories, the rover will drive to certain science stations, collect data through cameras,
08:00through other science instruments, send them back to our ground station,
08:04definitely will be analyzed and processed by our on-ground systems, and then we will continue.
08:13The whole process, the whole science mission, will last for one lunar day, which is equivalent to 14.75 Earth days.
08:24All our operations will be continuous, 24-7 type of operations, where we will have three shifts,
08:35taking rounds on controlling and operating the RASHID rover, and downloading data generated by the rover.
08:43So we will say to RASHID rover, good night, RASHID.
08:47So RASHID will step into a hibernation mode.
08:53All systems on board will be shut down.
08:57Temperature during the lunar night will drop down to almost 1-80 degrees Celsius,
09:05and then we will wait for two weeks until the sun rises again on the landing site.
09:13We hope that we will do an experimental part of the mission,
09:17where we will hope that the RASHID rover will wake up again after getting energy from the sun.
09:23Systems will boot up again, and the communication system will be listening to us.
09:29If things went very well, and RASHID rover could survive the lunar night,
09:34then we hope that we will be able to communicate with RASHID rover,
09:37and that will be another achievement of the mission, an extended part of the mission,
09:41but it will be a great achievement of the mission,
09:43since it is beyond our objective of doing all the mission within one lunar day.
09:50If everything is healthy, we might continue our operations for a second lunar day.
09:56IMMERSE lunar mission is part of the Mars 2117 program.
10:00This is a very ambitious and with an ultimate goal of building a human settlement on Martian surface after 100 years.
10:10In order to do that, we need to continue developing our capabilities
10:14and the technologies that will allow us to do and to achieve that objective.
10:19Definitely, that means that we need to work with our international partners,
10:25as we are doing right now with the first mission,
10:28and we will continue to do that with our future plans.