A new country is now joining the US, Russia, and China when it comes to space exploration. The United Arab Emirates has announced an unmanned moon mission for 2024. The new lunar mission will use the UAE’s most ambitious spacecraft yet:
The new lunar mission involves a small rover, to be built entirely at Dubai's Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC). Inaugurated in 2006, the center has already designed and built Earth-orbit satellites under an all-Emirati team, but the rover is its most ambitious technological undertaking to date.
"We have experience with orbiters, but this will be the first mission in which we are landing on another celestial body," says Adnan Al Rais, who leads the Mars 2117 program at the MBRSC.
"We are working on the development of the science and technologies that will enable us one day to send humans to Mars," explains Al Rais. "In order to do that, we looked into the gaps that we currently have in our knowledge; space robotics and robotic technologies are among those gaps, which we are addressing by developing a lunar rover."
Image via CNN
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