(CNN) — China on Friday launched an uncrewed lunar mission that aims to bring back samples from the far side of the Moon for the first time, in a potentially crucial step for the country’s ambitious space program.
The Chang’e-6 probe, China’s most complex robotic lunar mission to date, marks a key milestone in the country’s quest to become a dominant space power, with plans to land astronauts on the moon in 2030 and build a research base at its south pole.
The launch of the probe on a Long March-5 rocket from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on Hainan Island in southern China comes as a growing number of countries, including the United States, They look at the strategic and scientific benefits of expanding lunar exploration in an increasingly competitive field.
On the 53-day mission, the Chang’e-6 lander will land in a huge crater on the far side of the Moon, which never faces Earth. China became the first and only country to land on the far side of the Moon during its 2019 Chang’e-4 mission.
Any far side samples recovered by the Chang’e-6 lander could help scientists glimpse the evolution of the Moon and the solar system itself, and provide important data to advance China’s lunar ambitions. .
“The goal of Chang’e-6 is to advance the design and control technology of the Moon’s retrograde orbit, intelligent sampling, takeoff and ascent technologies, and automatic return of samples on the far side of the Moon,” said Ge Ping, deputy director of the Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center of the China National Space Administration, from the launch site last week.
ambitious mission
The Chang’e-6 probe will be a key test of China’s space capabilities as it strives to realize leader Xi Jinping’s “eternal dream” of turning the country into a space power.
China has made rapid space advances in recent years, in a field traditionally led by the United States and Russia.
With the Chang’e program, launched in 2007 and named after the lunar goddess of Chinese mythology, in 2013 China became the first country to achieve a robotic moon landing in almost four decades. In 2022, China completed its own orbital space station, Tiangong.
The technically complex Chang’e-6 mission builds on both Chang’e-4’s record landing on the far side of the Moon in 2019 and the success of Chang’e-5 in 2020, which returned to the Earth with samples of the Moon.
On this occasion, to communicate with Earth from the far side of the Moon, Chang’e-6 depends on the Queqiao-2 satellite, launched into lunar orbit in March.
The probe is made up of four parts: an orbiter, a lander, an ascent module and a reentry module.
The mission plan is for the Chang’e-6 lander to collect lunar dust and rocks after landing in the extensive South Pole-Aitken basin, about 2,500 kilometers in diameter, a crater formed about 4 billion ago. of years.
An ascending spacecraft would then transport the samples to the lunar orbiter for transfer to the reentry module and the mission’s return to Earth.
According to James Head, a professor emeritus at Brown University who has collaborated with the Chinese scientists leading the mission, this complex mission “encompasses virtually all the steps” necessary for Chinese astronauts to land on the Moon in the coming years.
In addition to bringing back samples that could provide “fundamental new knowledge about the origin and early history of the Moon and the solar system,” the mission also serves as “robotic practice for these steps” to take astronauts to the Moon and back, he said.
China plans to launch two more Chang-e series missions as it moves closer to its 2030 goal of sending astronauts to the Moon before building a research station in the following decade at the lunar south pole, a region believed to containing water ice.
Chang’e-7, scheduled for 2026, will aim to search for resources at the Moon’s south pole, while Chang’e-8, about two years later, could study how to use lunar materials to prepare for the construction of the Moon. research base, as stated by the Chinese authorities.
Competitive space
Friday’s launch comes as several countries are ramping up their lunar programs amid growing interest in potential access to deep space resources and exploration that successful lunar missions could bring.
Last year, India landed its first spacecraft on the Moon, while Russia’s first lunar mission in decades ended in failure when its Luna 25 probe crashed into the lunar surface.
In January, Japan became the fifth country to land a spacecraft on the moon, although its Moon Sniper lander had power issues due to an incorrect landing angle. The following month, IM-1, a NASA-funded mission designed by private Texas-based company Intuitive Machines, landed near the South Pole.
This landing, the first of a U.S.-made spacecraft in more than five decades, is one of several commercial missions planned to explore the lunar surface before NASA attempts to return American astronauts there in 2026 and build its scientific base camp. .
Last month, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson appeared to acknowledge that China’s pace and concern about its intentions were driving the American urgency to return to the Moon, decades after its manned Apollo missions.
“We believe that much of their so-called civilian space program is a military program. I think, in effect, we are in a race,” Nelson told lawmakers last month, adding concern about the possibility that China might try to ban the U.S. US or other countries access to certain lunar areas if they get there first.
China has long advocated the peaceful uses of space and, like the United States, has sought to use its space prowess to cultivate international goodwill.
This time, China has said that the Chang’e-6 mission will carry scientific instruments or payloads from France, Italy, Pakistan and the European Space Agency.
