DUBAI: The first Arab-built lunar rover has successfully completed a month in space, traveling close to 1.34 million km, the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center announced.
Rashid Rover, designed and built in the UAE by an all-Emirati team of engineers, experts and researchers, lifted off on Dec. 11 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, the Emirates News Agency reported on Friday.
Since the launch, the Emirates Lunar Mission team has completed 220 minutes of communication with the world’s most compact rover.
The team has completed all scheduled health assessment and maintenance checks on the vehicle and its onboard subsystems and instruments. For two weeks after the launch, the rover was powered on for 10 minutes a day and the team on Earth is now communicating with it once every week.
During the ongoing four-month cruise phase, the team will communicate with Rashid Rover for another 150 minutes. The ELM team said its subsystems had been activated 17 times since launch. These were powered on for one hour the first time, followed by 10 minutes of daily activation over the subsequent two weeks. Currently, the subsystems are being powered on once a week for 10 minutes each time.
The team is now preparing for the entry, descent and landing phase, and surface operations. As part of the current cruise phase, the team will conduct 12 simulated mission rehearsals organized at the MBRSC ground station for surface operations before the rover’s lunar landing at the end of April.
The rehearsals will allow the engineering team to prepare their programs for execution after the landing while enabling different subsystem teams to synchronize their work.
The navigation stage for the HAKUTO-R Mission 1 lunar lander that holds the Rashid Rover includes planned deep space orbital control maneuvers and successfully targeting the first lunar orbit insertion.
During its mission, the rover will conduct numerous scientific tests on the surface of the moon that will contribute to making qualitative developments in the fields of science, communication technologies and robotics.
The impact of these developments will extend beyond the space sector into the wider national and global economy. The mission is funded by the ICT Fund of the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority, which aims to support research and development in the ICT sector in the UAE.
UAE’s Rashid Rover completes one month in space
https://arab.news/zs8rn
UAE’s Rashid Rover completes one month in space
- Vehicle was designed, built by all-Emirati team
- It lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida in December
Trunk snapped off famed Bernini statue in Rome square
ROME, Feb 18 (Reuters) - A marble elephant designed by Baroque master Gian Lorenzo Bernini has been damaged, with its left tusk found snapped off and lying at the base of the monument in the heart of Rome, authorities said.
The damage was uncovered on Monday night and police said they would review video footage from Piazza della Minerva to determine whether the tusk was vandalised or simply fell off following weeks of unusually heavy rains.
Italy's Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli made clear he thought it was deliberate, saying the 17th statue, which supports an ancient Egyptian obelisk, was victim of an "absurd act of barbarity".
"It is unacceptable that once again the nation's artistic and cultural heritage must suffer such serious damage," he said in a statement.
It is not the first time the sculpture, popularly known as the Elefantino (little elephant), has been damaged.
In November 2016, the tip of the same tusk was similarly found broken off. The piece was reattached during restoration work.
The sculpture, created in 1667 by Ercole Ferrata based on a design by Bernini, stands a short distance from the Pantheon, one of most visited tourist sites in Rome. (Reporting by Francesca Piscioneri, editing by Crispian Balmer)
