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The Rashid Rover Prepares For Its Lunar Exploration Mission
The UAE’s lunar mission will take off tomorrow, helping scientists figure out how to colonize new planets.
Tomorrow (Wednesday, November 30th), at 12:39pm (Gulf Standard Time), the Emirati-made Rashid Rover will lift off on its mission to the Moon, while the entire Arab world looks on with pride at this huge milestone.
Rashid Rover, named after Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, will touch down on the southeastern edge of the Moon’s Mare Frigoris (Sea of Cold), from where it will begin capturing data from the vast, unexplored basins of the lunar surface.
Sending home over 10 gigabytes of scientific data and images, Rashid Rover will help scientists to study the lunar geology by supplying information on soil content, plasma levels, dust movement and other details. The advanced vehicle will carry out its mission using 3D cameras, motion sensor systems, and communication tools powered by solar panels.
As well as helping experts back on Earth to better understand our own origins, Rashid Rover will also be at the forefront of developing new technologies that could see humans colonizing the Moon and, eventually, Mars.
“The mission embodies the aspirations of the UAE. Rashid Rover will collect images and information that will allow the UAE to conduct comprehensive and integrated studies on how to build a human settlement on the Moon, prepare for future missions to study Mars and provide the scientific community with answers about the solar system and other planets,” says Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre in an official statement.
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To reach its destination, Rashid Rover will hitch a lift on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket before making the final leg of the journey to the Moon’s surface using a lander called Hakuto-R M1. As the lander gets closer to the deck, the Japanese-made craft will first orbit the Moon in an elliptical trajectory before entering into a soft, vertical descent performed by fully-automated guidance systems.
Rashid Rover is the first of the UAE’s missions to the Moon, but it certainly won’t be the last. In September, MBRSC signed an agreement with the Chinese National Space Administration to begin joint projects and future lunar exploration, including sending another rover to the Moon on board Chang’e 7, which is expected to launch in 2026.
News
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.
Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.
The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc
— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026
“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.
Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.
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The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.
Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
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