The Emirates Lunar Mission (ELM) is one step closer to its launch pad rollout and liftoff, as Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre’s (MBRSC) Rashid rover has officially cleared all the required tests for its space journey and subsequent mission.

Over the last four months, the rover was subjected to a series of rigorous internal and external reviews. The reviews were designed to test out every one of the multitudes of systems and subsystems of the rover during the launch, cruise and descent stages.

Earlier this year, the ELM rover completed the assembly and first set of full functional tests of the flight model in the laboratories of MBRSC. This phase of testing included assessments of all the functionality of the hardware and software within the possible on-surface (lunar) scenarios.

This phase also included a heavy vibration test of the model at the EDGE’s Electro-Optics Centre of Excellence (EOCE) laboratories based in Abu Dhabi.

In the second phase, the Rashid rover completed a series of environmental tests at Toulouse, France. This included two sections of the evaluation: the first was the final thermal and vacuum tests within the Airbus facility, in which the Rover was heated and cooled to simulate the pressures and temperatures of its journey through space and on the moon’s surface.

The second and last section of the environmental tests included rigorous vibration and shock checks of the flight model at the CNES Labs. For this, the rover was shaken on a vibration table simulating the environment the rover will encounter during the launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as well as be subjected to the same shocks it will experience decelerating in the lunar atmosphere, the intense impact of deployment and touchdown.

The tests campaign concluded in Germany with the final phase of checks on the interfaces with the ispace lander that will safely deliver the rover to the Moon’s surface.