China managed to land a lander on the far side of the Moon on Sunday morning, the country’s space agency announced, bringing the mission one step closer to bringing back the first sample of the part of the Moon that Earthlings have ever seen. come.
The unmanned Chang’e-6 probe landed in the Aitken Basin of the Moon’s South Pole at 6:23 a.m., the China National Space Administration said in a statement.
The agency released a video taken by the landing camera when the probe touched down. In the video, the cratered surface of the moon comes closer and closer as the lander descends.
Chang’e-6, named after the Chinese lunar goddess, is the second mission to land on the far side of the Moon. Its predecessor, Chang’e-4, made history by being the first to do so in 2019.
The far side of the Moon is different from the near side, where the United States, China and what was then the The Soviet Union collected samples. It has a thicker crust, more craters, and fewer marias, or plains where lava once flowed. It is not clear why the two sides of the Moon are so different; Samples collected by Chang’e-6 could provide some clues.
The South Pole’s Aitkin Basin, a massive impact crater about 1,600 miles wide, is among the largest in the history of the solar system, and the impact that created it is believed to have unearthed material from the lunar mantle. That material, if it can be recovered, could help scientists learn more about the history of the moon’s interior.
China is the only country to have sent missions to the far side of the Moon so far, and the missions are part of its growing space ambitions in an increasingly competitive global environment. The country has successfully launched a mission to Mars and has plans for a future visit to an asteroid. It also aims to land a person on the Moon before 2030, which would make it the second nation to do so after the United States.
Chang’e-6 is the third mission to land on the Moon this year. Japan became the fifth country in the world to reach the surface of the Moon when its intelligent lunar research lander landed there in January. Odysseus, a private spacecraft built by Intuitive Machines of Houston, landed in February.
Chang’e-6 lifted off on May 3 from the Wenchang space site on Hainan Island in southern China. It reached the moon on May 8, the Chinese space agency said, and orbited it for several weeks before landing. The descent took about 14 minutes and the probe used cameras and three-dimensional laser scanning to avoid obstacles as it landed, the agency said.
The probe will collect samples for about two days, collecting rocks and soil from the lunar surface and also drilling into the ground to collect subsurface samples, the agency said.
It will then spend additional weeks in lunar orbit preparing for a five-day return trip to Earth. The entire mission is expected to take about 53 days, according to the agency.
Missions to the far side of the Moon are complex because it is impossible to establish direct communication with the probes located there.
In 2018, China sent the Queqiao satellite into lunar orbit to transmit information from Chang’e-4 to Earth. It launched a second satellite in March this year. The two satellites will be used together to stay in contact with Chang’e-6 while it collects samples.
Zixu Wang contributed with reports.