Lunar exploration|China plans to bring two kilograms of rare moonstones to Earth at the end of June.
China’s the Chang’e 6 probe has landed intact on the far side of the Moon.
Chang’e 6 slammed into the moon’s Apollo crater at walking speed on Sunday. It was 01:23 Finnish time.
Apollo Crater is located on the far side of the Moon – the side whose surface is never visible to Earth.
The crater is part of the gigantic, 2,500-kilometer-diameter Aitken Basin. It rules the Moon’s south pole region. There are numerous craters within Aitken.
The Chinese Space Administration CNSA was thus able to take its probe to the far side of the Moon for the second time. The previous success on the Moon was Chang’e 4 in January 2019.
No other country has reached the other side with its probes even once.
From the moon the same side of the Earth can be seen all the time, but with a slight fluctuation. About 59 percent of the Moon’s surface can be seen on Earth.
The far side of the moon was photographed for the first time already in October 1959. That’s when the Soviet satellite Luna 3 sent a fuzzy picture that was taken from the other side of the moon.
Since then, it has been known that the far side of the Moon is more jagged than the visible side.
Chang’e 6 reached lunar orbit about four days after departure, i.e. on May 7.
Then time was spent choosing a landing spot. Chang’e 6 landed pretty much exactly where it was supposed to.
During these days, the lander and the small rover are supposed to explore the environment and collect about two kilograms of lunar rocks and dust.
Some of the samples are dug by a robot arm from a depth of up to two meters. This is where a rock drill helps.
The ship will only be on the dock for the beginning of the week, he says news channel CNN. The collected rocks are sent to lunar orbit on a return flight to the ascendant. It’s a small rocket.
The samples are transferred to the sample container for the return flight to Earth. The tank is scheduled to be parachuted into Mongolia on June 25.
The researchers are comparing the rocks from Chang’e 6 with the samples that Chang’e 5 brought to Earth in December 2020. The return cargo then contained 1.73 kilograms of moon rocks.
From the moon stones have been brought to Earth since the end of the 1960s on different flights closer to 400 kilosbut not from the far side of the Moon.
Geologists and chemists are now getting rocks for the first time from the other side and near the south pole of the Moon.
Chang’e 6 will also carry a small ATV that will be launched.
China has already sent a satellite into orbit around the Moon, which transmits data from the other side of the Earth. The satellite is called Queqiao-2. It also helped aid the landing of Chang’e 6, CNSA officials told the website According to Space.com.
China’s the monthly program has been running for 17 years.
Next, the Moon will be explored by Chang’e 7 in 2026. In the same year, Chang’e 8 will find out how the resources of the Moon’s south pole could be used for construction.
The goal is the flight of Chinese astronauts to the moon before 2030. The United States aims for the same in 2026 and 2027 at the latest.
The last time a man visited the Moon was in December 1972 in the United States On the Apollo-17 flight.
Probes have been sent to the surface of the Moon often In the 2020s and especially in recent months. China’s Chang’e 5, Japan’s Jaxa, Slim and Hakuto R, India’s Vikra and the US’s IM-1 Odysseus have landed on the moon this decade.
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