China’s lunar probe awaits launch as space race with US heats up

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China is set to launch an unmanned lunar mission on Friday that aims to return samples from the far side of the Moon for the first time, in a potentially important advancement for the country’s ambitious space program.

The Chang’e-6 probe – from China most complex robotic lunar mission to date – marks an important milestone in the country’s effort to become a dominant space power with plans to land astronauts on the Moon by 2030 and build a research base at its south pole.

The probe’s expected launch 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 Statessee the strategic and scientific benefits of expanded lunar exploration in an increasingly competitive field.

China’s planned 53-day mission would see the Chang’e-6 lander land in an open 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 samples from the far side recovered by the Chang’e-6 probe could help scientists analyze the evolution of the Moon and the solar system itself – and provide important data to advance China’s lunar ambitions.

“Chang’e-6 aims to achieve breakthroughs in design and control technology of the Moon’s retrograde orbit, intelligent sampling, takeoff and ascent technologies, and automatic sample return on the far side of the Moon,” Ge Ping said deputy director from the Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center of the China National Space Administration last week at the launch site.

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 transforming 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 moon goddess from Chinese mythology, China in 2013 became the first country to achieve a robotic lunar 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-breaking landing in 2019 on the far side of the Moon and the success of Chang’e-5 in 2020 returning to Earth with samples from the far side. close to the Moon.

This time, to communicate with Earth from the other side of the Moon, Chang’e-6 will have to rely on the Queqiao-2 satellite, launched into lunar orbit in March.

The probe itself is made up of four parts: an orbiter, a lander, an ascender and a reentry module.

The mission plan is for the Chang’e-6 lander to collect lunar dust and rocks after landing in the sprawling South Pole-Aitken basin, about 2,500 kilometers in diameter, a crater formed about 4 billion years ago. 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.

The complex mission “goes through virtually all the steps” that will be necessary for Chinese astronauts to land on the Moon in the coming years, according to James Head, professor emeritus at Brown University who collaborated with Chinese scientists leading the mission.

In addition to returning samples that could produce “fundamental new insights into the origin and early history of the Moon and the solar system,” the mission also serves as “robotic practice for these steps” to get astronauts to the Moon and back, he said.

China plans to launch two more missions in the Chang-e series as it approaches the 2030 goal of sending astronauts to the Moon before building a research station over the next decade at the lunar south pole – a region believed to contain 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 base construction. research, Chinese officials said. he said.

Competitive space

Friday’s launch comes as several nations step up their lunar programs amid a growing focus on potential access to resources and the additional access to deep space 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 on the surface of the moon.

In January, Japan became the fifth country to land a spacecraft on the Moon, although its Moon Sniper lander faced power problems due to an incorrect landing angle. The following month, IM-1, a NASA-funded mission designed by Texas-based private company Intuitive Machines, it landed near the South Pole.

That landing — the first by a U.S.-made spacecraft in more than five decades — is among several planned commercial missions aimed at exploring the lunar surface before NASA attempts to return U.S. astronauts there. as soon as 2026 and build your scientific base camp.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson appeared to recognize last month that China’s pace — and concerns about its intentions — were driving the American urgency to return to the Moon, decades after its manned Apollo missions.

“We believe that much of the so-called civilian space program is a military program. I think we’re actually in a race,” Nelson counted lawmakers last month, adding their concern that China could try to bar the U.S. or other countries from certain lunar areas if they got there first.

China has long said it advocates the peaceful use of space and, like the US, has sought to use its space capabilities to cultivate international goodwill.

This time, China said the Chang’e-6 mission will carry scientific instruments or payloads from France, Italy, Pakistan and the European Space Agency.

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