The Chinese Chang’e-6 probe managed to land on the far side of the Moon.

China’s Chang’e 6 probe managed to land on the far side of the moon this Saturday, state news agency Xinhua confirmed. Launched on May 3, it is an automated exploration vehicle that aims to collect samples from the lunar surface and send them back to Earth, loaded into a small return module carried on the craft. The planned duration of the entire mission will be 53 days.

The spacecraft, named after the Chinese moon goddess Chang’e, landed without problems on the surface of the Aitken Basin, a huge irregular impact crater with a diameter of about 2,000 kilometers and about 12 kilometers, the China Space Agency detailed. at its maximum depth is located on the hidden side of our satellite, that is, the one that is never visible from Earth.

Chinese scientists stressed that this will be the first time that samples will be collected from this little-studied area of ​​the Moon. Chang’e 5, the previous mission in the series, which is part of China’s ambitious lunar exploration program, managed to send about two kilograms of rocks back to Earth at the end of 2020. This ship landed on Oceanus Procellarum, near Mount Rümker. , on the visible side of the satellite.

Like its predecessor, Chang’e 6 consists of a lander and a sample return vehicle located on top of it. It was launched by a Long March 5 rocket from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan Island.

Now that it’s on the surface, the spacecraft will deploy solar panels to power its lander-mounted systems and begin collecting lunar dust and rocks and conducting other experiments. This process should be completed within two days, Xinhua reported. The probe will use two collection methods: a drill to collect samples from the subsurface and a robotic arm to collect samples from the surface.

Once charging is complete, it will make an unprecedented launch from the far side of the Moon. Experts believe that this side “has great potential for exploration because its craters are less covered by ancient lava flows on the visible side,” as the Chinese Space Agency emphasizes. The collected material could provide information about how the Moon was formed.

In 2019, China already managed to land the Chang’e-4 spacecraft on the far side, but it did not collect any samples.