Paris and Washington pledged Wednesday to reenforce their cooperation in space, particularly on exploration and climate, during a visit by France's Emmanuel Macron to NASA headquarters alongside US Vice President Kamala Harris.

The French president, on a state visit to the United States, highlighted the American lunar program Artemis, whose first uncrewed test mission launched in mid-November with participation of the European Space Agency (ESA).

"We are very keen" to participate, he told Harris, adding with a smile: "It's very important for us, as long as you can propose a French leader to fly to the Moon quite rapidly," he said, in a nod to French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who joined Macron for the NASA visit.

Graphene Flagship Partners University of Cambridge (U.K.) and Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB, Belgium) paired up with the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC, United Arab Emirates), and the European Space Agency (ESA) to test graphene on the moon. This joint effort sees the involvement of many international partners, such as Airbus Defense and Space, Khalifa University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Technische Universität Dortmund, University of Oslo, and Tohoku University.

The Rashid rover is planned to be launched on December 1, 2022 from Cape Canaveral in Florida and will land on a geologically rich and, as yet, only remotely explored area on the moon's nearside—the side that always faces the Earth. During one lunar day, equivalent to approximately 14 days on Earth, Rashid will move on the lunar surface investigating interesting geological features.

The Rashid rover wheels will be used for repeated exposure of different materials to the lunar surface. As part of this Material Adhesion and abrasion Detection experiment, graphene-based composites on the rover wheels will be used to understand if they can protect spacecraft against the harsh conditions on the moon, and especially against regolith (also known as "lunar dust").