Umar Rehman Malik rejoices two good news for Pakistan
Abdullah Jan
Islamabad: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Umar Rehman Malik said this week that Pakistan got two good news in the recent days.
“This week brings news of two great achievements for Pakistan. On Friday, Pakistan’s inaugural lunar mission, iCube Qamar commenced its journey, followed by mountaineer Naila Kiani’s historic feat on Sunday, becoming the first Pakistani woman to summit 11 8,000m peaks worldwide. Congratulations to the entire nation, and best wishes to our champions,” he said in a statement.
In a historic first, a Pakistani satellite will orbit the moon as part of China’s Chang’e-6 lunar mission, which was launched from Hainan, China.
The mission, which aims to explore the moon’s “dark side”, will employ lunar research payloads from multiple countries, including Pakistan’s iCube Qamar satellite.
The Institute of Space Technology (IST) said Pakistan’s “historic” lunar module iCube-Q, which was designed by IST in collaboration with China’s Shanghai University (SJTU) and Pakistan’s national space agency Suparco, will be aboard Chang’e-6. The mission, dubbed Chang’e, is named after the mythical Chinese moon goddess.
Chang’e-6 aims to collect around two kilogrammes of lunar samples from the far side of the Moon and bring them back to Earth for analysis. Chinese state news agency Xinhua hailed it as “the first endeavour of its kind in the history of human lunar exploration”.
“Chang’e-6 will collect samples from the far side of the Moon for the first time,” Ge Ping, vice director of China’s Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Centre, told journalists.
China will send a robotic spacecraft in the coming days on a round trip to the moon’s far side in the first of three technically demanding missions that will pave the way for an inaugural Chinese crewed landing and a base on the lunar south pole.
The probe is set to land in the immense South Pole-Aitken Basin, one of the largest known impact craters in the solar system. Once there, it will scoop up lunar soil and rocks, and carry out other experiments in the landing zone.
With no direct line of sight with the Earth, Chang’e-6 must rely on a recently deployed relay satellite orbiting the moon during its 53-day mission, including a never-before-attempted ascent from the moon’s “hidden” side on its return journey home.
On Chang’e-6, China is carrying payloads from France, Italy, Sweden and Pakistan, while Chang’e-7 will bear payloads from Russia, Switzerland and Thailand when it launches in 2026.
The country has notched several notable achievements, including building a space station called Tiangong, or “heavenly palace”, to which it sent a fresh crew of three astronauts last month.
Beijing has landed robotic rovers on Mars and the moon and made China the third country to independently put humans in orbit. China aims to send a crewed mission to the moon by 2030, with further plans to build a base on the lunar surface.
Earlier, Dubai-based mountaineer Naila Kiani became the first woman from Pakistan to summit Mount Makalu, the fifth-highest mountain in the world, the country’s leading non-governmental organization promoting mountaineering said.
Mount Makalu is located in the Mahalangur range of the Nepal Himalayas, southeast of Mount Everest. The imposing mountain stands at 8,485 meters (27,838 feet) high. Kiani’s latest achievement makes her the first and only Pakistani woman to summit eleven peaks higher than 8,000 meters.
She has previously summited Broad Peak (8,047 meters), Annapurna (8,091 meters), K2 (8,611 meters), Lhotse (8,516 meters), Gasherbrum 1 (8,068 meters), Gasherbrum II (8,035 meters), Nanga Parbat (8,125 meters), Mount Everest (8,849 meters), Manaslu (8,156 meters) and Cho Oyu (8,201 meters).
