Picture shows distance covered by lunar lander since its launch.

Yamama Bedwan, Staff Reporter

“Our Ops Team has successfully carried out the second orbital control maneuver of our HAKUTO-R Mission 1 lunar lander operations plan! Since its launch on Dec.11, 2022, our lander has maintained stable navigation,” ispace announced on Monday.

It said, “As of today, the lander has traveled approximately 1.24 million kilometers from the Earth and is scheduled to be at its farthest point of approximately 1.4 million km from the Earth by Jan.”

“When the lander reaches its farthest point from Earth, a third orbital control maneuver may be performed, depending on its navigational status. Once it has navigated deep space for one month, Mission Milestone Success 5 will have been achieved,” ispace added.

The mission is taking a low energy route to the moon and is due to arrive around April 2023. Once there, the rover will spend one lunar day (equivalent to 14.75 days on Earth) on the surface, conducting its main operations.

It will spend a second lunar day conducting secondary operations, to check whether the rover will survive the moon’s tough nighttime environment, before decommissioning.

Scheduled to touch down in the Atlas crater the northeast part of the moon, the rover has been designed to withstand the lunar night, when temperatures can reach as low as -183°C, or -297.4°F.

The Rashid Rover, named after the late Sheikh Rashid Al Saeed, the former ruler of Dubai, will analyze the plasma on the lunar surface and conduct experiments to understand more about lunar dust. Razor-sharp lunar dust particles can stick to and erode spacesuits and equipment, causing operational problems for astronauts.