UAE plans to launch spacecraft to moon in 2024

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The United Arab Emirates plans to send an unmanned spacecraft to the moon in 2024, a top Emirati official said Tuesday, the latest gamble in the stars by the oil-rich nation that could see it become only the fourth nation on Earth to accomplish that goal.

The announcement by Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who also serves as the vice president and prime minister of the hereditarily ruled UAE, shows the rapid expansion of the space program that bears his name.

Already, an Emirati space probe is hurtling through space on its way to Mars, while last year it sent its first astronaut to the International Space Station.

“It will be an Emirati-made lunar rover that will land on the surface of the moon in 2024 in areas that have not been explored previously by human missions,” Sheikh Mohammed wrote on Twitter.

He did not elaborate on the location that the UAE planned to explore, nor how they would launch the rover into space. The launch of its Amal, or “Hope,” probe to Mars took place at Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center in July.

The Emirati rover will study the lunar surface, mobility on the moon’s surface and how different surfaces interact with lunar particles, the government later said. The 22-pound rover will carry two high-resolution cameras, a microscopic camera, a thermal imagery camera, a probe and other devices, it said.

Sheikh Mohammed said the rover would be named Rashid, the name of his late father, Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum. Sheikh Rashid was one of the founding rulers of the United Arab Emirates, a federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula.

Sheikh Mohammed made the announcement on Twitter.