CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida: A Tokyo company aimed for the moon with its own private lander Sunday, blasting off atop a SpaceX rocket with the United Arab Emirates’ first lunar rover and a toylike robot from Japan that’s designed to roll around up there in the gray dust.
It will take nearly five months for the lander and its experiments to reach the moon.
The company ispace designed its craft to use minimal fuel to save money and leave more room for cargo. So it’s taking a slow, low-energy path to the moon, flying 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth before looping back and intersecting with the moon by the end of April.
By contrast, NASA’s Orion crew capsule with test dummies took five days to reach the moon last month. The lunar flyby mission ends Sunday with a Pacific splashdown.
The ispace lander will aim for Atlas crater in the northeastern section of the moon’s near side, more than 50 miles (87 kilometers) across and just over 1 mile (2 kilometers) deep. With its four legs extended, the lander is more than 7 feet (2.3 meters) tall.
With a science satellite already around Mars, the UAE wants to explore the moon, too. Its rover, named Rashid after Dubai’s royal family, weighs just 22 pounds (10 kilograms) and will operate on the surface for about 10 days, like everything else on the mission.
Emirates project manager Hamad AlMarzooqi said landing on an unexplored part of the moon will yield “novel and highly valued” scientific data. In addition, the lunar surface is “an ideal platform” to test new tech that can be used for eventual human expeditions to Mars.
Plus there’s national pride — the rover represents “a pioneering national endeavor in the space sector and a historic moment that, if successful, will be the first Emirati and Arab mission to land on the surface of the moon,” he said in a statement following liftoff.
In addition, the lander is carrying an orange-sized sphere from the Japanese Space Agency that will transform into a wheeled robot on the moon. Also flying: a solid state battery from a Japanese-based spark plug company; an Ottawa, Ontario, company’s flight computer with artificial intelligence for identifying geologic features seen by the UAE rover; and 360-degree cameras from a Toronto-area company.
Hitching a ride on the rocket was a small NASA laser experiment that is now bound for the moon on its own to hunt for ice in the permanently shadowed craters of the lunar south pole.
The ispace mission is called Hakuto, Japanese for white rabbit. In Asian folklore, a white rabbit is said to live on the moon. A second lunar landing by the private company is planned for 2024 and a third in 2025.
Founded in 2010, ispace was among the finalists in the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition requiring a successful landing on the moon by 2018. The lunar rover built by ispace never launched.
Another finalist, an Israeli nonprofit called SpaceIL, managed to reach the moon in 2019. But instead of landing gently, the spacecraft Beresheet slammed into the moon and was destroyed.
With Sunday’s predawn launch from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, ispace is now on its way to becoming one of the first private entities to attempt a moon landing. Although not launching until early next year, lunar landers built by Pittsburgh’s Astrobotic Technology and Houston’s Intuitive Machines may beat ispace to the moon thanks to shorter cruise times.
Only Russia, the US and China have achieved so-called “soft landings” on the moon, beginning with the former Soviet Union’s Luna 9 in 1966. And only the US has put astronauts on the lunar surface: 12 men over six landings.
Sunday marked the 50th anniversary of astronauts’ last lunar landing, by Apollo 17’s Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt on Dec. 11, 1972.
NASA’s Apollo moonshots were all “about the excitement of the technology,” said ispace founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada, who wasn’t alive then. Now, “it’s the excitement of the business.”
“This is the dawn of the lunar economy,” Hakamada noted in the SpaceX launch webcast. “Let’s go to the moon.”
Liftoff should have occurred two weeks ago, but was delayed by SpaceX for extra rocket checks.
Eight minutes after launch, the recycled first-stage booster landed back at Cape Canaveral under a near full moon, the double sonic booms echoing through the night.
Japanese company’s lander rockets toward moon with UAE rover
https://arab.news/2bpft
Japanese company’s lander rockets toward moon with UAE rover
- It will take nearly five months for the lander and its experiments to reach the moon
UN General Assembly backs Palestinian bid for membership
- Vote by 193-member General Assembly a global survey of support for Palestinian bid to become full member
NEW YORK CITY: The United Nations General Assembly on Friday backed a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognizing it as qualified to join and recommending the UN Security Council “reconsider the matter favorably.”
The vote by the 193-member General Assembly was a global survey of support for the Palestinian bid to become a full UN member — a move that would effectively recognize a Palestinian state — after the United States vetoed it in the UN Security Council last month.
The assembly adopted a resolution on Friday with 143 votes in favor and nine against — including the US and Israel — while 25 countries abstained. It does not give the Palestinians full UN membership, but simply recognizes them as qualified to join.
The General Assembly resolution “determines that the State of Palestine ... should therefore be admitted to membership” and it “recommends that the Security Council reconsider the matter favorably.”
The Palestinian push for full UN membership comes seven months into a war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and as Israel is expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank, which the UN considers to be illegal.
“We want peace, we want freedom,” Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the General Assembly before the vote. “A yes vote is a vote for Palestinian existence, it is not against any state. ... It is an investment in peace.”
“Voting yes is the right thing to do,” he said in remarks that drew applause.
Under the founding UN Charter, membership is open to “peace-loving states” that accept the obligations in that document and are able and willing to carry them out.
“As long as so many of you are ‘Jew-hating,’ you don’t really care that the Palestinians are not ‘peace-loving,’” said UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan, who spoke after Mansour. He accused the Assembly of shredding the UN Charter — as he used a small shredder to destroy a copy of the Charter while at the lectern.
“Shame on you,” Erdan said.
The ambassador said on Monday that, if the measure was approved, he expected the US to cut funding to the United Nations and its institutions, in accordance with American law.
An application to become a full UN member first needs to be approved by the 15-member Security Council and then the General Assembly. If the measure is again voted on by the council it is likely to face the same fate: a US veto.
“The council must respond to the will of the international community,” United Arab Emirates UN Ambassador Mohamed Abushahab told the assembly before the vote.
The General Assembly resolution adopted on Friday does give the Palestinians some additional rights and privileges from September 2024 — like a seat among the UN members in the assembly hall — but they will not be granted a vote in the body.
The Palestinians are currently a non-member observer state, a de facto recognition of statehood that was granted by the UN General Assembly in 2012.
US FUNDING
The Palestinian UN mission in New York said on Thursday — in a letter to UN member states — that adoption of the resolution backing full UN membership would be an investment in preserving the long-sought-for two-state solution.
It said it would “constitute a clear reaffirmation of support at this very critical moment for the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including the right to their independent State.”
The mission is run by the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank. Hamas ousted the Palestinian Authority from power in Gaza in 2007. Hamas — which has a charter calling for Israel’s destruction — launched the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered Israel’s assault on Gaza.
The United Nations has long endorsed a vision of two states living side by side within secure and recognized borders. Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, all territory captured by Israel in the 1967 war with neighboring Arab states.
The US mission to the United Nations said earlier this week: “It remains the US view that the path toward statehood for the Palestinian people is through direct negotiations.”
Under US law, Washington cannot fund any UN organization that grants full membership to any group that does not have the “internationally recognized attributes” of statehood. The United States cut funding in 2011 for the UN cultural agency, UNESCO, after the Palestinians joined as a full member.
On Thursday, 25 US Republican senators — more than half of the party’s members in the chamber — introduced a bill to tighten those restrictions and cut off funding to any entity giving rights and privileges to the Palestinians. The bill is unlikely to pass the Senate, which is controlled by President Joe Biden’s Democrats.
Iraq requests end of UN assistance mission by end-2025
- Prime PM said Iraq wanted to deepen cooperation with other UN organizations but there was no longer a need for the political work of the UN assistance mission
BAGHDAD: Iraq has requested that a United Nations assistance mission set up after the 2003 US-led invasion of the country end its work by the end of 2025, saying it was no longer needed because Iraq had made significant progress toward stability.
The mission, headquartered in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, was set up with a wide mandate to help develop Iraqi institutions, support political dialogue and elections, and promote human rights.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said Iraq wanted to deepen cooperation with other UN organizations but there was no longer a need for the political work of the UN assistance mission, known as UNAMI.
The mission’s head in Iraq often shuttles between top political, judicial and security officials in work that supporters see as important to preventing and resolving conflicts but critics have often described as interference.
“Iraq has managed to take important steps in many fields, especially those that fall under UNAMI’s mandate,” Sudani said in a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Iraq’s government has since 2023 moved to end several international missions, including the US-led coalition created in 2014 to fight Islamic State and the UN’s mission established to help promote accountability for the jihadist group’s crimes.
Iraqi officials say the country has come a long way from the sectarian bloodletting after the US-led invasion and Islamic State’s attempt to establish a caliphate, and that it no longer needs so much international help.
Some critics worry about the stability of the young democracy, given recurring conflict and the presence of many heavily armed military-political groups that have often battled on the streets, the last time in 2022.
Some diplomats and UN officials also worry about human rights and accountability in a country that frequently ranks among the world’s most corrupt and where activists say freedom of expression has been curtailed in recent years.
Iraq’s government says it is working to fight corruption and denies there is less room for free expression.
Somalia’s government also requested the termination of a UN political mission this week. In a letter to the Security Council, the country’s foreign minister called for the departure of the Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM), which has advised the government on peace-building, security reforms and democracy for over a decade. He provided no reason.
Gaza aid could grind to a halt within days, UN agencies warn
- Humanitarian workers have sounded the alarm this week over the closure of the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings for aid
LONDON: Dwindling food and fuel stocks could force aid operations to grind to a halt within days in Gaza as vital crossings remain shut, forcing hospitals to close down and leading to more malnutrition, United Nations aid agencies warned on Friday.
Humanitarian workers have sounded the alarm this week over the closure of the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings for aid and people as part of Israel’s military operation in Rafah, where around 1 million uprooted people have been sheltering.
The Israeli military said a limited operation in Rafah was meant to kill fighters and dismantle infrastructure used by Hamas, which governs the besieged Palestinian territory.
“For five days, no fuel and virtually no humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip, and we are scraping the bottom of the barrel,” said the UNICEF Senior Emergency Coordinator in the Gaza Strip, Hamish Young.
“This is already a huge issue for the population and for all humanitarian actors but in a matter of days, if not corrected, the lack of fuel could grind humanitarian operations to a halt,” he told a virtual briefing.
More than 100,000 people have fled Rafah in the last five days
More than 100,000 people have fled Rafah in recent days, said Young.
Israel’s military on Monday called for Gazans to leave eastern Rafah, which triggered widespread international alarm.
The UN children’s agency UNICEF said more than 100,000 had left, with the UN humanitarian agency OCHA putting the figure at more than 110,000.
All eyes have been on Rafah in recent weeks, where the population had swelled to around 1.5 million after hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled fighting in other areas of Gaza.
Georgios Petropoulos, head of OCHA’s sub-office in Gaza, said the situation in the besieged Palestinian territory had reached “even more unprecedented levels of emergency.”
Countries around the world, including key Israeli backer the United States, have urged Israel not to extend its ground offensive into Rafah, citing fears of a large civilian toll.
Hamish Young, UNICEF’s senior emergency coordinator in the Gaza Strip, insisted Rafah “must not be invaded” and called for the immediate flow of fuel and aid into the Gaza Strip.
“Yesterday, I was walking around the Al-Mawasi zone, that people in Rafah are being told to move to,” he said, also speaking from Rafah.
“Shelters already lined Al-Mawasi’s sand dunes and it’s now becoming difficult to move between the mass of tents and tarpaulins.
AFP journalists in the Gaza Strip early Friday witnessed artillery strikes on Rafah on the territory’s southern border with Egypt.
Gaza’s bloodiest-ever war began following Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel has conducted a retaliatory offensive that has killed more than 34,900 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Turkiye says it killed 17 Kurdish militants in northern Iraq, Syria
ANKARA: Turkish forces have killed 17 militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) across various regions of northern Iraq and northern Syria, the defense ministry said on Friday.
In a post on social media platform X, the ministry said its forces had “neutralized” 10 PKK insurgents found in the Gara and Hakurk regions of northern Iraq, and in an area where the Turkish military frequently mounts cross-border raids under its “Claw-Lock Operation.”
It said another seven militants were “neutralized” in two regions of northern Syria, where Turkiye has previously carried out cross-border incursions.
The ministry’s use of the term “neutralized” commonly means killed. The PKK, which has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984, is designated a terrorist organization by Turkiye, the United States and the European Union.
Turkiye’s cross-border attacks into northern Iraq have been a source of tension with its southeastern neighbor for years. Ankara has asked Iraq for more cooperation in combating the PKK, and Baghdad labelled the group a “banned organization” in March.
Last month, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan held talks with officials in Baghdad and Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, about the continued presence of the PKK in northern Iraq, where it is based, and other issues. Erdogan later said he believed Iraq saw the need to eliminate the PKK as well.
Turkiye has also staged military incursions in Syria’s north against the YPG militia, which it regards as a wing of the PKK.
Erdogan and his ministers have repeatedly said that while Ankara is working on repairing ties with Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government after years of animosity, it will mount a new offensive into northern Syria to push the YPG away from its border.
Israeli demonstrators torch part of UN compound in Jerusalem
- Compound closed until proper security was restored
- Thursday’s incident was the second in less than a week
JERUSALEM: The main United Nations aid agency for Palestinians closed its headquarters in East Jerusalem after local Israeli residents set fire to areas at the edge of the sprawling compound, the agency said.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, said in a post on the social media platform X that he had decided to close the compound until proper security was restored. He said Thursday’s incident was the second in less than a week.
“This is an outrageous development. Once again, the lives of UN staff were at a serious risk,” he said.
“It is the responsibility of the State of Israel as an occupying power to ensure that United Nations personnel and facilities are protected at all times,” he said.
This evening, Israeli residents set fire twice to the perimeter of the UNRWA Headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem.
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) May 9, 2024
This took place while UNRWA and other UN Agencies’ staff were on the compound.
While there were no casualties among our staff, the fire caused extensive damage… pic.twitter.com/ZqHFDNkiWC
UNRWA, set up to deal with the Palestinian refugees who fled or were forced from their homes during the 1948 war around the time of Israel’s creation, has long been a target of Israeli hostility.
Since the start of the war with Gaza Israeli officials have called repeatedly for the agency to be shut down, accusing it of complicity with the Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza, a charge the United Nations strongly rejects.
Israel considers all of Jerusalem its indivisible capital, including eastern parts it captured in a 1967 war, which Palestinians seek as the future capital of an independent state.
Lazzarini said staff were present at the time of the incident but there were no casualties. However outdoor areas were damaged by the blaze, which was put out by staff after emergency services took time to respond.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli police.
Lazzarini said groups of Israelis had been staging regular demonstrations outside the UNRWA compound for the past two months and said stones were thrown at staff and buildings in the compound this week.
In footage shared with Lazzarini’s post, smoke can be seen rising near buildings at the edge of the compound while the sound of chanting and singing can be heard.
A crowd accompanied by armed men were witnessed outside the compound chanting “Burn down the United Nations,” Lazzarini said.
