Web Desk
May 10, 2024
iCube Qamar — the first satellite mission of Pakistan focused on capturing the images of moon from lunar orbit — sent the first image of the moon on Friday marking the first ever mark in the history.
The lunar satellite was launched on May 3 from Hainan, China. The satellite mission is developed by IST, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) in China and Suparco (Pakistan’s national space agency). After the successful testing, the orbiter was incorporated with the sixth lunar exploration mission of China’s Chang’e6 mission.
According to Institute of Space Technology (IST), the iCube-Q completed its rotation in 12 hours. The institute also said “it has made three rounds around the moon.” The image sent by the iCube-Q was received after two days of the announcement of deployment of the satellite on May 8 at 1:14 pm PST.
“The iCube-Qamar will image the lunar orbit from a distance of 200 km from the surface of the moon” and “the signals of iCube-Qamar will be received on Earth by covering a distance of 360,000 to 400,000 km.”
Chinese Embassy congratulated Pakistan on this achievement in a recent tweet. The embassy wrote: "Well begun is half done. As Pakistan’s satellite ICUBE-Q successfully entered lunar orbit on Wed after 5 days of travelling, scientists received initial image data, laying solid foundation for in-depth [China-Pakistan] co-op in moon & deep space exploration”.
