Dubai: The UAE’s Emirates Lunar Mission is working on a second rover to the Moon, a top official revealed on Wednesday.

Dr Hamad Al Marzooqi, project manager, Emirates Lunar Mission (EML), Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC), made the announcement while speaking at a plenary session on ‘MBRSC Missions: From Earth to Mars passing by Moon’ at the 17th International Conference on Space Operations (SpaceOps 2023) in Dubai.

Speaking to Gulf News later, he confirmed that MBRSC is working on a new concept design for the next Moon rover. He said no name has been given to the rover yet as further details of the next mission have not firmed up yet.

“We are working on the concepts or the ideas and the objectives. The mission will be announced later, the name of the robot etc will come later,” he said.

April 25 landing

The UAE’s first ever rover to the Moon, the Rashid Rover, is scheduled to land on Moon’s surface on April 25, it was revealed at the same conference on Monday.

As reported first by Gulf News, the Japanese Lander carrying Rashid Rover has travelled 1.6 million kilometres and the rover is expected to land the Moon on April 25, said Salem Al Marri, director-general of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre.

Pointing out that Moon landing is a high-risk mission, Al Marzooqi said MBRSC considers Rashid Rover to be a success irrespective of it’s landing success.

“Developing that mission, designing it from scratch, developing testing, and now preparing for operations, all these know-how is a success by itself,” he said.

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