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In 2022 a Moonrush will begin in earnest
“登月热”：2022年将迎来月球探索年
During the cold-war space race between the Soviet Union and America, the latter’s Apollo Moon missions were mostly about making a political and technological point. Having made it, they duly ceased. Now, approaching half a century after astronauts last walked on the Moon, a new age of lunar exploration is dawning. This time the goal is not just to get people and machines on or near to Earth’s satellite, but also to sustain operations there.
冷战期间，在苏联和美国的太空竞赛中，美国的阿波罗登月任务主要是为了表明政治和技术立场。完成这一任务后，登月计划便适时搁置了。现在，距离宇航员最后一次登上月球已经过去近半个世纪了，一个探索月球的新时代正在到来。这次的目标不仅仅是让人和机器登上或接近地球卫星，而且还要维持那里的运行。
More people are in on the action, too. South Korea’s first lunar spacecraft, an orbiter, is to be launched this summer. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) hopes to become, in the autumn, the first Arab country to operate a craft on the Moon. Though this project involves other countries, Rashid, the rover in question, is being built by the UAE Space Agency in Dubai. It will carry a device called a Langmuir probe to study, in another first, the plasma of charged particles caused by the arrival at the Moon’s surface of the solar wind.
越来越多的国家加入了登月行列。韩国的首个月球探测器，将于今年夏天发射。阿联酋有望在今秋成为第一个在月球上运行航天器的阿拉伯国家。尽管这个项目涉及其他国家，但这个被质疑的月球车——拉希德，是由位于迪拜的阿联酋航天局建造的。它也将首次携带一个叫做朗缪尔探测器的设备，用于研究太阳风到达月球表面时引起的带电粒子等离子体。
And Israel may also soon be represented, by Space IL, a philanthropically sponsored organisation that intends, in a couple of years’ time, to land a probe on the far side of the Moon—a feat accomplished so far only by China. The UAE’s rover will be delivered by HAKUTO-R, a landing craft built by iSpace, a Japanese firm, that is launched on a rocket from SpaceX, an American one.
而且，以色列也可能很快就会被一个慈善组织Space IL所代表，该组织打算在几年内，在月球背面着陆一个探测器（这是迄今为止只有中国完成的壮举）。阿联酋的探测车将由HAKUTO-R交付（HAKUTO-R是日本iSpace公司制造的登陆艇），由美国SpaceX公司的火箭发射。
