China’s Chang’e-6 lunar probe blasted off the far side of the Moon on Tuesday, taking a step closer to completing an ambitious mission that underscores the country’s rise as a space superpower.
In a symbolic moment before takeoff, China also became the first country to display its national flag on the far side of the Moon, which permanently faces the opposite side of the Earth.
The probe, carrying the first lunar rocks ever collected from the far side of the Moon, lifted off and entered lunar orbit on Tuesday Beijing time after successfully collecting samples over the previous two days, according to a report. declaration of the China National Space Administration (CNSA).
Its return trip to Earth is estimated to take about three weeks, with a landing expected in the Inner Mongolia region of China around June 25.
The successful return of the samples would give China a head start in harnessing the strategic and scientific benefits of expanded lunar exploration — an increasingly competitive field that has contributed to what NASA chief Bill Nelson calls a new “race space”.
This is the second time China has collected samples from the Moon, after Chang’e-5 brought rocks from the near side in 2020.
Earlier this year, Nelson seemed to recognize China’s pace — and concerns about its intentions — were driving the American urgency to return to the Moon, decades after its manned Apollo missions.
A Photograph published by CNSA on Tuesday and trending on Chinese platform Weibo, resembling an .
The Chang’e-6 probe withstood “the test of high temperatures” and collected the samples by drilling into the moon’s surface and excavating soil and rocks with a mechanical arm, the CNSA said.
After collecting the specimens, Chang’e-6 extended a robotic arm to raise the Chinese flag, according to an animation released by CNSA.
The flag, made from volcanic basalt rock, was designed to resist corrosion and extreme temperatures on the far side of the Moon for future lunar missions, a Chang’e-6 engineer told state broadcaster CCTV.
The rock “was crushed, melted and formed into filaments about a third the diameter of a human hair, then spun into thread and woven into fabric,” said engineer Zhou Changyi.
“The lunar surface is rich in basalt,” added Zhou. “As we are building a lunar base in the future, we will probably have to turn basalt into fibers and use it as a building material.”
Historical mission
Chang’e-6 successfully landed on Sunday morning in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, the oldest impact basin on the Moon, formed about 4 billion years ago. It was the second time that a mission has successfully reached the far side of the Moon, after China completed this historic feat for the first time in 2019 with its Chang’e-4 probe.
If everything goes as planned, the mission — which started on May 3rd and is expected to last 53 days — could be an important milestone in China’s effort to become a dominant space power.
The country’s plans include landing astronauts on the Moon by 2030 and building a research base at the South Pole, a region believed to contain ice water.
Samples collected by the Chang’e-6 probe could provide important clues about the origin and evolution of the Moon, Earth and the solar system, experts say – while the mission itself provides important data and technical practices to advance China’s lunar ambitions .
“The enigmatic far side of the Moon is so different from the near side of the Moon in so many ways that without returned samples, lunar scientists cannot fully understand the Moon as an entire planetary body,” said James Head, professor emeritus at Brown University who he has collaborated with Chinese scientists leading the mission. “The samples returned from Chang’e 6 will allow great advances to be made in solving these problems.”
The far side of the Moon is beyond the reach of normal communications, which means Chang’e-6 must also rely on a satellite that was launched into lunar orbit in March, Queqiao-2.
China plans to launch two more missions in the Chang-e series as it approaches its 2030 goal of sending astronauts to the moon.
Space race
Multiple nations are expanding their lunar programs, with an increasing focus on securing access to resources and further exploration of deep space.
Last year, India landed a spacecraft on the Moon for the first time, while Russia’s first lunar landing 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 private Texas-based company Intuitive Machines, it landed near the lunar 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.
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