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PARIS – The United Arab Emirates will fly its Rashid 2 rover on China’s 2026 Chang’e 7 lunar mission, following an agreement between the two countries.
On September 16, MBRSC Director General HE Salem Humaid AlMarri and CNSA Deputy Director Wu Yanhua signed a memorandum of understanding, marking the first cooperation between the two in space missions.
Chang’e 7 is a multi-spacecraft mission involving an orbiter, lander, rover and a small, repeatable, movable lander Used to investigate shadow craters.Ground-based spacecraft will consist of a relay satellite in an inclined, highly elliptical lunar orbit.
The mission will now also carry a small Emirati rover developed by the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) in Dubai. So far, no specifications for the vehicle have been released.
MBRSC and the China National Space Administration signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on future lunar missions, including landing the MBRSC rover on a CNSA lander. pic.twitter.com/xEr27U6W5S
— MBR Space Centre (@MBRSpaceCentre) September 16, 2022
roll out Chang’e-7 According to Chinese reports, it is currently expected by the end of 2026. Earlier Chinese mission plans suggested the mission could launch around 2024 and before the return of the Chang’e-6 sample.
The spacecraft has a total mass of about 8 tons and was launched by a Long March 5 rocket.
Some obvious candidate landing sites for the mission overlapping Those recently selected as possible landing zones for NASA’s Artemis 3 crewed mission.
China, the United States and other countries are interested in Antarctic regions that provide good lighting, safe landing zones, and proximity to permanently shadowed craters thought to contain cold-trapped volatiles, including water ice.
The UAE will launch the Rashid 1 rover, named after the late ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, on a Falcon 9 rocket later this year. The 10kg rover will be Baidou R A lander developed by the Japanese company ispace.
The UAE is a signatory to the U.S.-led Artemis Agreement, which aims to establish a common set of principles for responsible behavior on the moon, but does not prohibit cooperation with other parties.
However, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which restricts and controls the export of technology, may pose different questions for the manufacture of the Rashid 2 rover.
China opened the Chang’e 7 mission to potential partners for the small rover when it announced a roadmap in June 2021. International Lunar Research Station Cooperation with Russia.
China has completed two lander missions on the near and far sides of the moon with Chang’e-3 and Chang’e-4, respectively. It also performed a complex lunar sample return mission in 2020, Chang’e-5.
The country’s next scheduled lunar mission is Chang’e-6, which will attempt to collect samples from the South Pole-Aitken basin on the far side of the moon.
However, the landing site is expected to be at a similar latitude to Chang’e-5, rather than near the moon’s south pole. Chang’e-3, Chang’e-4, and Chang’e-5 all fell at one latitude in the mid-1940s, suggesting that the spacecraft were designed for the lighting conditions in these areas.
The Chang’e-7 spacecraft will require a different solar array design to operate under the challenging lighting conditions at the lunar south pole.
Chang’e 6, 7 and 8, scheduled to launch this decade, are part of the fourth phase of China’s lunar exploration, known as the precursor to ILRS.
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