“On Sunday, the UAE-built ‘Rashid rover’ was launched on board a Space X Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida,” said Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
“Our aim is knowledge transfer and developing our capabilities and to add a scientific imprint in the history of humanity,” he tweeted.
The mission, according to the state-owned WAM news agency, will make the UAE the first Arab country and the fourth country in the world to make a soft landing on the lunar surface, after the United States, Soviet Union and China.
The Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre said the integrated spacecraft would take a low-energy route to the moon rather than a direct approach, which means the landing will take place in about five months, in April 2023.
The rover will be transported to the moon on a lunar lander made by a Japanese company, ispace, and next spring, around the time the rover is due to make its soft landing, Emirati astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi is scheduled to begin a six-month mission on the International Space Station.