Pakistan’s first satellite mission to the moon, iCube-Qamar, has sent its first image of the moon in lunar orbit, the Space Institute of Technology told. Sputnik had previously sent images from lunar orbit.
In a major development, Kamar is the first Pakistani satellite to enter lunar orbit and complete its orbit in 12 hours, according to IST.
ICube-Qamar announced that the signal will receive a distance of 360,000 to 400,000 km on Earth.
IST: “iCube-Qamar has orbited the Moon three times,” he said.
The first image was taken two days after the satellite was announced to have been successfully placed into orbit on May 8 at 14:14 Pakistan time.
Once deployed, the satellite will take desired images of the moon’s surface in a 12-hour elliptical orbit.
ICube-Qamar was launched on May 3 from Hainan, China, aboard China’s Chang’e-6.
Before the launch of the satellite last week, Dr Khurram said that the Pakistani satellite will take different pictures of the lunar surface, after which Pakistan will have satellite images of the moon for research.
The iCube-Qamar orbiter carries two optical cameras to image the surface of the Moon. After successful qualification and testing, the orbiter was integrated with China’s Chang’e6 mission – the sixth in a series of lunar exploration missions.
