UAE's Orbital Space joins China’s ambitious Moon base programme

A UAE company will support China’s ambitious plan to build a research station on the Moon in the next decade.

Orbital Space will help to develop lunar exploration technologies, or payloads, for missions that could launch as part of China's International Lunar Research Station programme.

An agreement was signed on Thursday between Orbital Space and China’s Deep Space Exploration Lab at the International Deep Space Exploration Conference, being held in China.

Nada Al Shammari, director of Orbital Space, told The National that Chinese space experts would also visit the UAE for youth training.

“To achieve our missions and goals we must work with others, we cannot do it on our own,” she said.

“Given that China has made significant achievements in lunar exploration, by landing rovers and returning samples from the Moon to the Earth – and other major accomplishments – they are leading in lunar exploration, and we are excited to work with them.”

Orbital Space was responsible for launching Kuwait’s miniature satellite QMR-KWT into orbit on board a SpaceX rocket in 2021 to help students test software code.

The company also plans to launch the UAE's first private mission to the Moon by sending a payload it has developed on board a rover built by US company Astrobotic in 2026.

The payload will test different materials against Moon dust and could help develop technology such as space suits that would protect astronauts from the abrasive nature of lunar regolith.

“We also do boot camps for youth in the UAE, so as part of collaboration, experts from China can come and support in that,” Ms Al Shammari said.

China’s lunar exploration programme has undergone significant advances, particularly with the Chang’e-6 mission, which successfully landed on the far side of the Moon in June.

The mission brought back samples from the South Pole-Aitken Basin, a largely unexplored region.

Future missions, including Chang’e-7 and Chang’e-8, are set to explore the Moon's south pole, hoping to find resources like water ice and test in situ resource utilisation – the use of materials found on the Moon's surface to create resources.

These missions are key to China’s goal of establishing a permanent lunar research station.

Orbital Space is the second entity from the UAE to join China’s programme, after the University of Sharjah signed a similar collaboration deal last year in November.

China’s lunar efforts come at a time when the space race is heating up with the US, as both nations are focused on landing people on the Moon.

China plans to send astronauts by 2030, while the US is looking to return people to the surface through its Artemis programme.

The UAE Space Agency signed the Artemis Accords in 2020, an international agreement that outlines peaceful lunar exploration.

Earlier this year, the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre, a UAE government organisation that oversees the nation’s astronaut and lunar programme, signed a deal with Nasa to develop a vital component of the planned Gateway, a station that would orbit the Moon.

In exchange, an Emirati astronaut will be assigned a mission to the station in future.