The far side of the Moon, the hemisphere of our satellite that we never see from Earth, was an absolute mystery until the Soviet probe Lunik 3 He took his first photograph in 1959. Six decades later, China became the first nation capable of landing a robotic ship in that unexplored region, a feat that no other country has emulated. Today, the Asian giant has achieved a new milestone, successfully completing its most complex robotic lunar mission to date, the Chang’e 6with which he has managed to land on the moon in the most remote part of the star, collect two kilos of lunar rocks, transfer them to the return module and transport them to our planet, within the planned period of 53 days.
Scientists hope that these samples will shed light on the origins and evolution of not only our closest celestial body, but the entire solar system, while many analysts anticipate that the mission has important strategic and geopolitical implications. Beijing is determined to consolidate its presence in the cosmos and considers its space program a fundamental pillar of its plan to become a great economic, technological and diplomatic power of the 21st century.
The probe Chang’e 6 has landed back and without incident on the Siziwang flag of Inner Mongolia, in the north of the country, at 2:07 p.m. local time (8:07 a.m. Spanish peninsular time), as reported by the China National Space Administration. Images broadcast by Chinese state television CCTV have shown how the capsule carrying the samples descended by parachute from bright blue skies until falling into the steppes, where scientists collected it.
The Moon’s most remote hemisphere looks very different from what we see from Earth, with an older, thicker crust and many more craters. Experts believe that the samples obtained on this mission could have a different chemical composition than those recovered from the most visible side in the American Apollo and Soviet Moon missions (launched in the 1960s and 1970s, in the middle of the Cold War) or in the Chang’e 5 china (2020). For this reason, they consider that their analysis could help understand why both sides are so different, and they hope that the results will provide new clues about the formation of celestial bodies. “They are expected to answer one of the most fundamental scientific questions in lunar research: What geological activity is responsible for the differences between the two faces?” writes Zongyu Yue, a geologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in a statement.
The probe Chang’e 6 left on May 3 aboard the country’s most advanced rocket model, the Long March 5, and landed on June 2 in the Apollo impact crater, about 520 kilometers in diameter, located within the vast Aitken Basin of the lunar south pole. This gigantic lunar depression (2,500 kilometers in diameter and 12 kilometers deep) was formed about 4,000 million years ago and is believed to contain frozen water, a resource that could be key for manned missions. The lunar south pole is, in fact, the new goal to explore, since access to water would significantly increase the chances of successfully establishing a human base on the Moon.
In addition to the difficulties of maneuvering due to the topography of the terrain, the technical complexity of the mission was aggravated by the fact that communication with the probe could not be direct, since the Moon’s own mass causes the modules to lose the signal. Although much of the process has been automated, communication for the moon landing and lunar takeoff has been facilitated thanks to the relay satellite Queqiao 2which was released in March.
To carry out the sampling, the rover explorer drilled into the ground with a drill and collected the two kilos of rocks and dust from the surface and subsoil with a robotic arm. Once the process was completed, the probe extended a robotic arm to raise the five-star red flag (the national one), according to the animations published by the space agency. The ascent module took off on June 4 carrying the capsule with the materials and docked with the system that continued in orbit two days later.
The program Chang’e, focused on the exploration of our satellite, is named in honor of a goddess who, according to Chinese tradition, inhabits the Moon. The first mission of this project was launched in 2007 and, in the last five years, it has achieved great feats. In 2019, the Chang’e 4 It was the first probe capable of landing on the far side of the Moon. A year later, with the Chang’e 5the Asian giant became the third country capable of transporting lunar material, something that until then only the United States and the Soviet Union had achieved.
But the aspirations of Beijing, which has been investing billions of euros in its space exploration projects for years, go much further. In 2026, it plans to launch the Chang’e 7 to study the resources of the lunar south pole and, in 2028, the Chang’e 8 will take off with the mission of checking how to use those resources on site and put their most advanced technology to the test. In addition, it intends to send a pair of taikonauts – Chinese astronauts – to the lunar surface before 2030.
Developing its capabilities to access Moon resources (such as water ice, helium-3 and rare earths) would demonstrate China’s maturity as a space power and consolidate its attractiveness as an international partner in complex missions. The fact that the Chang’e 6 being launched on the announced date adds reliability to China’s timelines for its planned future missions.
The program Chang’e It is also paving the way for the creation of the International Lunar Research Station (ISIL), the base being developed by the Chinese space administration and the Russian Roscosmos and whose construction is planned for the early 2030s. Although for the Chang’e 6 China has had collaboration from the European Space Agency (ESA), France and Italy, for now, the European side has not made a decision on whether to maintain that cooperation in other projects. It is known that it will not participate in ISIL, because space collaboration with Russia is currently under embargo.
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