SpaceX Rocket Launch: SpaceX, the company of the world’s richest man Elon Musk, on Sunday (December 11) achieved the initial success of transportation of a space mission from Canaveral, Florida, USA. According to reports, a SpaceX rocket was successfully launched with several components from Canada, the UAE and NASA, including a spacecraft designed by the Japanese startup.
The news agency AFP told that this is Japan’s first lunar mission and it is also the first in the case of launching from a rocket of a private company.
Features of Japanese spacecraft
Japan’s iSpace company has designed the spacecraft. Japan’s lunar mission is being known as ‘The Hakuto-R mission’, which means ‘white rabbit’ in Japanese. According to the reports, a camera is installed in Hakuto-R. It is expected to land on the moon in April 2023. Hakuto was one of the five finalists in Google’s Lunar Xprize competition to land a rover on the Moon before the end of 2018, none of which emerged winners.
News Reels
According to DW reports, Takeshi Hakamada, CEO of the Japanese startup, said in a statement, “Our first mission will lay the groundwork for uncovering the Moon’s potential and turning it into a strong and vibrant economic system.”
SpaceX’s rocket took UAE’s Louvre rover
SpaceX’s rocket has also taken the first Arab Lunar Rover and the American Space Agency NASA’s Lunar Flashlight CubeSat towards the Moon. According to the news agency PTI, SpaceX’s rocket named ‘Falcon 9’ has been launched. The dimensions of this rocket are two by two and a half meters.
Liftoff! pic.twitter.com/FEenmAJmOz
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 11, 2022
The name of the UAE’s Lunar Rover sent to the Moon by SpaceX’s rocket is ‘Rashid’, whose weight is said to be 10 kg. The UAE rover is new to the space race but the oil-rich country has some recent achievements, including a 2020 Mars mission. If Rashid is successful, it will be the first lunar mission of the Arab world.
What is NASA’s Mission Moon?
The report states that the US space agency NASA wants to develop a lunar economy in the coming years. For this, he has aimed to build a space station in orbit around the Moon and a base on the surface.
NASA has given contracts to many companies to develop such rovers, through which scientific experiments can be done on the surface of the moon. These include American companies Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines, which will take off in 2023 and will reach their destination earlier than iSpace due to adopting a more direct route. According to AFP, so far only the US, Russia and China have been successful in placing robots on the lunar surface.
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