In a historic first, a Pakistani satellite will orbit the moon as part of China’s historic Chang’e-6 lunar mission, which was launched from Hainan, China on Friday.
The mission, which aims to explore the moon’s “dark side”, will employ lunar research payloads from multiple countries, including Pakistan’s iCube Qamar satellite.
The Institute of Space Technology (IST) on Tuesday said Pakistan’s “historic” lunar module iCube-Q, which was designed by IST in collaboration with China’s Shanghai University (SJTU) and Pakistan’s national space agency Suparco will be aboard Chang’e-6.
China will send a robotic spacecraft in the coming days on a round trip to the moon’s far side in the first of three technically demanding missions that will pave the way for an inaugural Chinese crewed landing and a base on the lunar south pole.
The mission, dubbed Chang’e, is named after the mythical Chinese moon goddess.
More to follow.
