Space / China has landed a research craft on the dark side of the Moon

China landed an unmanned spacecraft on the dark side of the moon on Sunday, clearing a major hurdle in its historic mission to collect for the first time worldwide rock and soil samples from the dark lunar hemisphere, an area of ​​Earth’s satellite rarely explored, according to with the official Chinese news agency.

The Chang’e 6 probe, launched from the Wenchang Space Center on the southern tropical island of Hainan, landed in the huge South Pole-Aitken Basin, one of the largest known impact craters in our solar system, the News reported. China, citing the Chinese space agency.

In a feat no other country has achieved, China landed an uncrewed spacecraft on the far side of the moon. More here pic.twitter.com/V4sI6gtQ4G

— Reuters Science News (@ReutersScience) June 2, 2024

The landing boosts China’s space clout in a global race to the moon, where countries such as the United States hope to exploit lunar minerals to support long-duration astronaut missions and lunar bases within the next decade.

The Chang’e-6 spacecraft, equipped with an array of instruments and its own launcher, touched down in a giant crater called the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the moon’s space-facing side at 6:23 a.m. Beijing time (2223 GMT), as reported by the China National Space Agency.

The mission “involves many engineering innovations, high risks and great difficulty,” the agency said in a statement on its website. “The payloads carried by Chang’e-6 will perform as intended and perform scientific exploration missions.”

China landed an uncrewed spacecraft on the far side of the moon, overcoming a key hurdle in its landmark mission to retrieve the world’s first rock and soil samples from the dark lunar hemisphere pic.twitter.com/jZwT4MJYUC

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 2, 2024

The successful mission is China’s second to the dark side of the Moon, an area no other country has approached. The side of the Moon that is constantly away from Earth is riddled with deep and dark craters, making communications and robotic landing operations more difficult.

Chang’e-6 launched on May 3 on China’s Long March 5 rocket from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on the southern island of Hainan, reaching the lunar region about a week later before tightening its orbit in preparation for the lunar landing.

Chang’e-6 marks the world’s third lunar landing this year: Japan’s SLIM rover landed in January, followed the next month by a rover from US startup Intuitive Machines.

The other countries that have sent spacecraft to Earth’s nearest neighbor are the former Soviet Union and India. The United States is the only country to have sent humans to the Moon, starting in 1969.

Collection of samples

Using a spoon and a drill, Chang’e-6 will attempt to collect 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of lunar material within two days and bring it back to Earth.

The samples will be transferred to a rocket booster on board, which will launch back into space, rendezvous with another spacecraft in lunar orbit and return, with a landing in China’s Inner Mongolia region expected around June 25.

If all goes according to plan, the mission will provide China with an excellent record of the Moon’s 4.5 billion-year history and reveal new insights into the formation of the solar system. It will also allow an unprecedented comparison between the dark, unexplored region and the better-understood side of the Moon facing Earth.

A simulation lab for the Chang’e-6 mission will develop and verify sampling strategies and equipment control procedures, according to China’s official Xinhua news agency. It will use a full-scale replica of the sampling area, based on the results of exploration of the environment, rock distribution and lunar soil conditions around the landing site.

China’s lunar strategy includes the first manned lunar landing around 2030 in a program that counts Russia as a partner. In 2020, China conducted its first sample return mission with Chang’e-5, collecting samples from the far side of the Moon.

The US Artemis program envisions a manned landing on the Moon by late 2026 or later. NASA has partnered with space agencies including those of Canada, Europe and Japan, whose astronauts will participate in the Artemis missions alongside the US crews. Artemis relies heavily on private companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, whose Starship rocket aims this decade to carry astronauts to the moon for the first time since NASA’s last Apollo mission in 1972.

On Saturday, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa canceled a private mission around the Moon that he had paid for, citing uncertainties in the timing of the development of SpaceX’s Starship rocket. Boeing and NASA have postponed the first manned launch of the Starliner, a long-delayed capsule intended to become America’s second space taxi for low-Earth orbit.

Information from Reuters