Pakistan-China lunar collaboration fuels excitement for future research in Pakistan: official

ISLAMABAD, May 10 (Xinhua) -- Pictures taken by Pakistan's satellite onboard the Chang'e-6 spacecraft of China are very encouraging and enabled Pakistani professors and students to gather information for further research about the moon, a Pakistani official said on Friday.

"It is just the beginning because our satellite ICUBE-Q is still far from our targeted area of the south pole of the moon, and we are anxiously waiting to receive pictures taken from a distance of up to 200 meters from the moon's surface," Khurram Khurshid, a professor and the project manager of ICUBE-Q in the country's Institute of Space Technology (IST) told Xinhua.

The cube satellite was jointly developed by Pakistan's IST and China's Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The Chang'e-6 lunar probe, launched on May 3, carried four international payloads, including ICUBE-Q.

ICUBE-Q separated from the Chang'e-6 orbiter on May 8 to carry out exploration activities, such as capturing images of the moon.

"About 65 to 70 students worked on different stages to build the satellite, and it was very exciting for them to receive the pictures, because they worked very hard on the project and were keeping their fingers crossed for the results," Khurshid, who is also the core member of the IST's team working on the project, said.