The UAE has announced a mission to the Moon that will use an unusually small rover, weighing only four wheels and weighing 10 kilograms (22 pounds).
The rover, which will be built in Dubai, is much smaller than the last rover successfully deployed to the Moon; The Chinese Yutu-2 has six wheels and weighs 140 kilograms (310 pounds).
In comparison, Curiosity, NASA’s only active Mars rover, is even larger: it weighs 899 kilograms (1,982 pounds), the size of a small SUV.
The United Arab Emirates is trying to join an elite club from just three countries – the US, Russia and China – to successfully land a spacecraft on the lunar surface. In 2019, the Chandrayaan-2 mission from India landed on the Moon. Here you can see his rover on a ramp moving towards the main vehicle, before launch.
The Chinese Yutu-2 is the only active lunar explorer, but NASA wants to add one of its own. The Volantiles Investigation Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, is a mobile robot that will roam the south pole of the moon looking for water ice.
VIPER, about the size of a golf cart, is being tested at NASA’s simulated lunar operations lab in Ohio.
Star followers helped put the Hope spacecraft into orbit.
The Hope spacecraft was launched from Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan. The UAE has not yet announced partners for the rocket or launch pad for its 2024 unmanned lunar mission.
AlMansoori (L), shown here with mission security astronaut Sultan AlNeyadi, also had to master the incredibly complex systems inside the Soyuz capsule. The two astronauts had to learn Russian to operate on it.
Architects Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) have designed a city prototype for humans to live on Mars and then adapted the design for the Emirates desert.
The design consists of biodomes, each covered with a transparent polyethylene membrane.
The design has skylights full of water, which on Mars would protect residents from radiation, while allowing light to enter the rooms.
BIG’s design for Earth Science, linked to Earth, sets aside areas for life research on Mars, including the cultivation of food on the red planet.