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The UAE will once again fly to the moon in less than a year from now, Salem Humaid AlMarri, Director-General of Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC), said on Monday during day 1 of Dubai Airshow 2025.

Speaking at a session titled Stories Beyond Earth, Al Marri said Emirates Lunar Mission's Rashid Rover 2 is set for launch on the far side of the Moon in 2026. No date has been confirmed yet but Al Marri said Rashid Rover 2 will be carried by American aerospace company Firefly Aerospace.

He added engineers at MBRSC completed building and testing Rashid Rover 2, and it has been dispatched to US for its next phase.

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The UAE's lunar rover will be deployed on the far side of the Moon, which is the hemisphere always turned away from Earth that has rugged terrain and a thicker crust.

The UAE's first lunar spacecraft, Rashid Rover 1 was launched from Cape Canaveral on December 11, 2022. Its deployment on the Moon, however, on April 25, 2023 did not materialise after Hakuto-R Mission 1, the Japanese-made lunar lander carrying it, failed to accomplish a soft landing on the lunar surface.

The spacecraft built by private company Ispace was few moments away from touchdown when the ground control team in Tokyo lost communication with it. Measuring only 70cm X 50cm X 50m and weighing approximately 10kg with payload, Rashid Rover 1 would have made the distinction of being the smallest lunar rover to have landed on the Moon. That would have also made the UAE and Japanese company Ispace jointly only the fourth country and private entity that would have landed on the Moon, after the US, former Soviet Union and China.

This time, Rashid Rover 2 will be carried to the lunar surface by Firefly's Blue Ghost lander. Rashid Rover 2 will join Firefly's second lunar mission in 2026 in addition to payloads from Australia, the European Space Agency, and NASA as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.

According to American aerospace company Firefly, during Blue Ghost Mission 2 operations, Firefly's Elytra vehicle will first deploy the Blue Ghost lander and the European Space Agency's Lunar Pathfinder satellite in lunar orbit. Blue Ghost will then touch down on the far side of the Moon to deliver Rashid Rover 2, as well as Australia's Fleet Space SPIDER payload, and NASA's LuSEE-Night radio telescope and User Terminal. Elytra will remain in lunar orbit to provide long-haul communications and enable radio frequency calibration services

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