China’s Chang’e 6 moon mission Chang’e 6 will be carrying Pakistan made satellite “ICUBE-Q” cubesat to the orbit along with other international payloads. The other payloads include instruments from Italy, France (DORN : Detection of Outgassing Radon) and Sweden (ESA).
This was revealed by Professor Wang Qiong of Lunar Exploration and Engineering Center at the International Astronautical Congress 2022.
Chang’e 6 is a planned robotic Chinese lunar exploration mission that is expected to launch into space in 2024 and perform China’s second sample return mission. Like its predecessors, the spacecraft is named after the Chinese moon goddess Chang’e.
It is a part of a series of missions intended to map, land, and bring samples from the moon. All the previous missions from Chang’e 1 to Chang’e 6 were successfully conducted.
Pakistan has already launched its first Cubesat satellite, iCUBE-1 to space on-board Dnepr launch vehicle from Yasny launch base in Russia on 21 November 2013.
Built by the Institute of Space Technology (IST), iCUBE-1 was designed and developed at a cost of Rs3-3.5 million.
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