UAE announces collaboration with China to land a rover on the Moon

The UAE's Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC), on September 16, announced its collaboration with China's space agency to land a rover on the Moon in future lunar missions. In a tweet, the MBRSC revealed that the rover will be delivered to the lunar surface aboard a lander developed by the China National Space Administration (CNSA). 

“MBRSC and the China National Space Administration sign a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate on future Moon missions involving the landing of an MBRSC rover aboard a CNSA lander”, the tweet read. Notably, this is the first joint space project finalised between the two countries. 

UAE working on launching a rover to the Moon later this year

Currently, the UAE is working on launching a rover to the Moon later this year under the Emirates Lunar Mission in a lander developed by a Japanese company named ispace. Named Rashid, the robotic rover weighing 10 kg will be carried to the Moon inside the HAKUTO-R after being launched atop SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. 

As a demonstration mission, the rover will examine the lunar surface using a high-resolution camera, a thermal imager, and a microscopic image for one Earth day of 14 lunar days. The rover has another instrument named Langmuir which will be used to study the solar wind-induced electrically charged environment at the lunar surface. If the mission is successful, the UAE would become the fourth country after the US, USSR (now Russia) and China to land a spacecraft on the Moon. 

China, on the other hand, has aced five lunar missions, including its historic landing on the far side of the Moon in 2019. The far side of the Moon is the side that is not visible from Earth and is always covered in darkness. This secluded region is being explored by the Chinese rover which was launched in 2018. Prior to this, the CNSA had launched another rover-lander pair on the near side of the Moon in 2013. UAE's collaboration with China comes at a time when the latter is planning to launch its sixth mission to the Moon and ultimately build a permanent lunar base with Russia later this decade.