China’s Chang’e-6 probe lands with material from the far side of the Moon

53 days after takeoff, China’s Chang’e 6 probe has already returned to Earth, having completed its mission of collecting samples from the far side of the Moon, a milestone not yet achieved in the space race, even by the United States. The ship landed in northern China’s Inner Mongolia region at 8:07 a.m. peninsula time. “The Chang’e 6 lunar mission was completed successfully,” confirmed China National Space Administration (ANEC) director Zhang Kejian at a press conference minutes later. Chinese scientists believe the mission could provide more clues about how Earth’s moon formed, especially about the geological differences between the part that is never visible from Earth (hence its name) and the part that is.

“At 13:41-07:41 in Spain, the return module of Chang’e-6 entered the atmosphere at a speed of about 11.2 kilometers per second at an altitude of 120 kilometers above the earth’s surface, after which braking maneuvers began. began,” ANEC said in a statement. At an altitude of about 10 kilometers, the probe opened its parachute, lost speed and landed softly. Once on the surface, rescue teams began preparing the capsule for air transport to Beijing, where it will be opened to remove the almost two kilograms of collected samples.

The Asian giant’s spacecraft took off on May 3 from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in the southern province of Hainan and landed on June 2 at the vast Aitken Basin, one of the largest known impact craters in the solar system. Discovered in 2010, it is located at the South Pole and is about 2,500 kilometers long and 13 kilometers deep. To collect lunar dust and rocks, they used a drill to drill into the surface and a robotic arm. China already placed a spacecraft on the far side of the Moon in 2019, but did not collect any material.

The vehicle, which spent only two days on the lunar surface, consists of four parts: the orbiter, the lander, the elevator and the lander. The elevator’s job was to transport lunar samples collected by the lander to the lunar orbiter. Upon arrival, they were transferred to the re-entry module, which was responsible for returning them for analysis. The probe also carried several scientific teams from the European Space Agency (ESA), France’s National Center for Space Research (CNES), Italy and Pakistan.

Rivalry with the USA

In contrast to the problems faced by NASA and the private companies it partners with, which have barely managed to place their vehicles on the Moon and now cannot return astronauts from the International Space Station (ISS) Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams for After the Leak information about the Starliner spacecraft China continues to demonstrate absolute efficiency in its lunar missions. Chang’e 3, 4, and 5 landed on the Moon without any problems in 2013, 2019, and 2020, respectively. The first made the country the third to have the opportunity to land on the Moon after the United States and the Soviet Union. The second was the aforementioned milestone of placing the craft on the far side, and the last one collected 1.7 kilograms of samples from the lunar surface. In his analyses, he first directly discovered the presence of water on the Moon.

The Chang’e program, named after the goddess who, according to Chinese tradition, lives on the moon, began in 2007 with Chang’e 1, which orbited the satellite for a year and a half until it suffered a controlled crash in March 2009. In the coming years, Chang’e 7 will explore the moon’s south pole in search of water, and Chang’e 8 will try to establish the possibility of building a base there in 2030. The United States is wary of these plans. hide, according to Washington, military goals and try to dominate in space.