In a resounding demonstration of its advancement in space exploration, China successfully landed its unmanned Chang’e-6 spacecraft on the moon’s elusive far side this Sunday. The event marks a significant achievement in the nation’s ambitious mission to become the first to retrieve rock and soil samples from the moon’s rarely seen hemisphere.
The successful touchdown amplifies China’s growing potency in space exploration in the intensifying global race to the moon. Several nations, including the United States, harbour ambitions of extracting lunar resources to support long-standing astronaut operations and establish lunar bases over the upcoming decade.
The landing took place within the immense South Pole-Aitken Basin crater on the moon’s spaceward side. Broadcasted at 6.23 am Beijing time by the China National Space Administration, confirmation of the Chang’e-6 spacecraft’s landing was accompanied by an assertion of the high levels of risk and innovation inherent in the mission, according to a statement on their website.
This planetary venture represents China’s second successful mission on the moon’s far side, an achievement unparalleled by any other nation. This lunar hemisphere, perpetually turned away from Earth, is strewn with dark, deep craters complicating communication and robotic landings.
Given these difficulties, the landing phase is perceived as the stage most likely to fail, according to the space and lunar experts involved in the Chang’e-6 mission. Neil Melville-Kenney, a technical officer with the European Space Agency collaborating on one of the Chang’e-6 payloads, explained the challenges inherent in managing operations without direct line-of-sight communication. Furthermore, logistical issues result from the long, misleading shadows cast at high latitudes.
The launch of the Chang’e-6 spacecraft took place on May 3rd atop China’s Long March 5 rocket from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center, situated on Hainan Island in the south. The probe made its way to the vicinities of the moon approximately a week later, setting into an increasingly tightened orbit in readiness for the landing.
The Chang’e-6 lander, fitted with a scoop and drill, is on a mission to extract approximately 2kg of lunar material within a two-day period before returning it to Earth. The samples will be relocated to a rocket booster on the lander for their journey back to Earth, reconnecting with another spacecraft in lunar orbit for their return. A landing in China’s Inner Mongolia territory is expected approximately on June 25.
Assuming the mission unfolds as intended, this venture will offer China an unblemished record of the moon’s 4.5 billion-old history, presenting fresh insights on the formation of the solar system. It will also provide an extraordinary opportunity to compare the moon’s unprobed, darker side with the more familiar Earth-facing side.
China’s state-run newswire, Xinhua, has reported that a mirrored copy of the probe’s expected landing site, based on current knowledge about the environment, rock and soil conditions, will be used in the Chang’e-6 probe’s simulation lab to develop and test extraction tactics and equipment management processes.
China’s lunar initiatives, of which Russia is a partner, propose an astronaut landing in the near future, planned for roughly 2030. In the previous year, 2020, China carried out its maiden lunar sample return mission with Chang’e-5, gathering samples from the side of the moon closer to Earth.
The American Artemis programme anticipates a manned moon landing by end-2026 or thereabouts. It has joined forces with various space agencies from regions like Canada, Europe and Japan, whose astronauts will join American crews for an Artemis mission.
Prominent private firms such as SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, play a significant role in the Artemis project. In the coming decade, SpaceX’s Starship rocket will seek to achieve the first astronaut landing since NASA’s final Apollo mission in 1972.
Significantly, the Chang’e-6 represents the third lunar landing this year globally, preceded by Japan’s SLIM lander in January and a lander from US enterprise Intuitive Machines a month later.
Other nations that have explored Earth’s closest cosmic body include the former Soviet Union and India, with the United States being the only one to carry out manned lunar landings, initiated in 1969.
Recently, Japanese tycoon Yusaku Maezawa scrapped a personally-funded lunar mission planned to employ SpaceX’s Starship. The cancellation was linked to uncertainties in the rocket’s development timeline.
Boeing, in collaboration with NASA, has decided to delay the inaugural manned flight of Starliner – a deferred spacecraft intended to be the second American shuttle service to the low-Earth orbit, as reported by Reuters.