China’s Chang’e-6 probe successfully lands on the far side of the Moon

Ship “Chang’e-6”The spacecraft, equipped with a number of instruments and its own launcher, landed in a giant impact crater called the South Pole Aitken Basin on the space-facing side of the moon at 6:23 a.m. Beijing time, according to China’s National Space Administration.

The mission “involves many engineering innovations, high risks and great challenges,” the agency said on its website. “The payload carried by the Chang’e 6 lander will function as planned and carry out scientific research missions.”

The successful mission became the second Chinese mission to the far side of the Moon. a region that no other country has reached. The side of the Moon that is always away from Earth is littered with deep, dark craters, making communications and robotic landing operations difficult.

Faced with these challenges, lunar and space experts involved in the Chang’e 6 mission described the landing phase as the time when the likelihood of failure is greatest. “Landing on the far side of the moon is very difficult because you don’t have line of sight, you depend on many links in the chain to control what happens, or you have to automate what happens,” Neil Melville explained. Kenny, a European Space Agency technician working with China on one of the Chang’e 6 payloads.

“Automation is very difficultespecially at high latitudes because there are long shadows that can confuse landers,” Melville added.

Chang’e-6 probe It was released on May 3. on China’s Long March 5 rocket from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on the southern island of Hainan and reached the vicinity of the Moon about a week later before adjusting its orbit to prepare for landing.

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

Other countries that have sent spacecraft to Earth’s closest neighbor include the then Soviet Union and India. The United States is the only country to have landed men on the moon since 1969.

Moon sampling

Using a shovel and drill, the Chang’e-6 lander will aim collect 2 kg of lunar material for two days and return it to Earth.

The samples will be transferred to a launch vehicle on top of the lander, which will be launched back into space, dock with another spacecraft in lunar orbit and return, with an expected landing in China’s Inner Mongolia region around June 25.

If all goes according to plan, the mission will provide China with an intact record of the Moon’s 4.5 billion-year history and provide new clues about the formation of the solar system. It will also allow for an unprecedented comparison of the dark, unexplored region with the more explored side of the Moon facing Earth.

China’s lunar strategy includes landing its first astronaut around 2030 in a program of which Russia is a partner. In 2020, China carried out its first lunar sample return mission with the Chang’e 5 spacecraft, collecting samples from the near side of the Moon.