UAE sees lunar mining, permanent Moon presence 'in coming years'

Ibrahim Hamza Al Qasim, deputy director general of the UAE Space Agency, said on Monday that industrial space exploration will soon expand to lunar resource extraction and permanent human settlements, speaking during the 77th International Astronautical Congress in Türkiye's Antalya province. The Emirati official noted that upcoming missions will target rare metals and raw materials abundant in space but scarce on Earth.

"I think over the next decade you'll see incredible missions, humans going back to the service of the moon, a permanent presence for people on the Moon, but more importantly, I think you will probably see programs that not only explore space, but look at exploiting space resources and bringing back rare metals and and resources that are very limited on Earth," Al Qasim said. He added that advances in artificial intelligence and next-generation robotics are lowering barriers to entry, allowing emerging space programs to achieve results beyond their traditional capabilities.

Private capital transition

Al Qasim highlighted a fundamental shift in funding models, with private investment now exceeding government contributions. "We noticed that the tipping point is happening already within the UAE's ecosystem -- we see that most of the funding, well over 50%, coming towards space comes from the private sector," he told Anadolu. The agency is placing greater emphasis on private sector involvement rather than relying on state funding.

Deep space roadmap

The Emirates began its space program in 1997 and has since developed capabilities for deep space exploration targeting the Moon, Mars, and asteroid belt. "The UAE started in space about 30 years ago, 1997 is when we first entered the space race, and we built incredible capabilities over the last three decades, then we started our deep space exploration programs for the Moon, Mars, and the asteroid belt that we're launching in the first quarter of 2028," he said. The 77th International Astronautical Congress opened Monday in Antalya under the co-hosting of the Türkiye Space Agency and SAHA Istanbul, running through Friday with Anadolu Agency serving as global communications partner.