UAE Lunar Rover To Test AI On The Moon With Canada

One of the biggest advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) is about to happen on the moon.

On December 11th, SpaceX launched a United Arab Emirates (UAE) rover that will now take a Canadian machine learning system to the surface of the moon.

The Rashid Rover

Hosted on the Japanese ispace lander, the Rashid rover will hit the lunar surface this spring to look for minerals and other items.

The decision making of the rover will be informed by the Canadian system, which is a big moment for artificial intelligence (AI).

According to company officials, no AI has managed to go beyond the Earth’s orbit before.

CEO Ewan Reid said that if they are successful, it would be a major achievement for Mission Control Space Services (MCSS), which is NASA’s moon push.

The chief executive said that artificial intelligence would prove to be a vital tool for making decisions on the spacecraft.

He said that the work did not just focus on looking for water on the moon, which is what NASA’s Artemis missions are focused on, but also on providing greater efficiency in observation of the Earth.

MCSS wants to be in the driving seat in this situation, which comprises just 40 people for now.

Canadian tech

The thought of Canadian space tech usually brings flashy projects to mind, such as Canadarm, which is a robotic arm series that has been used by the International Space Station and the shuttle.

It would also be used by the Gateway lunar station of NASA. Canada also appears to have expertise in rocketry and even space medicine.

But, MCSS is a tad different because it provides essential components or software that operate in the background and fuel missions all across the globe.

The CEO said that the company does not boast about its work because most of its customers want the media to be focused on their mission.

Reid stated that this AI demonstration was different because it was with the Canadian Space Agency and since it is in the public domain, they can discuss this easily.

The plan

If things go as per plan, then the Rashid rover will operate for round one lunar day on the moon, which is about 29 days on Earth.

It will not be used for the lunar night, but the MCSS does not have any problems with that because it plans on getting a lot from the few days on the surface.

The navigation images that the Rashid rover takes will be received by MCSS through the Japanese lander that will deal with communications with Earth.

The algorithm of the Canadian company will help in classifying each pixel in the image as a certain terrain type.

Reid said that all of these images would be sent to engineers and scientists at their Ottawa office, along with other universities in Canada.

He stated that this would help in deciding where they should send the rover and once they are certain of the AI’s effectiveness, future missions would not involve humans.