China’s Chang’e-6 lunar module returned to Earth this Tuesday (25), successfully completing its historic mission of collecting the first samples from the other side of the Moon, in a major step forward for China’s ambitious space program. country.
The reentry module “successfully landed” in a designated zone in northern China’s northern Mongolia region shortly after 2pm local time, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
A live feed broadcast by CCTV showed the module landing by parachute and receiving applause in the control room.
“The Chang’e-6 lunar exploration mission was a complete success,” said Zhang Kejian, head of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), in the control room.
A search team located the module minutes after it landed, according to CCTV. The live feed showed a worker checking the module, which was in a pasture next to a Chinese flag.
The successful mission is a key milestone in China’s “eternal dream” – as articulated by Chinese leader Xi Jinping – of establishing the country as a dominant space power and comes as several countries, including the United States, also step up its own lunar exploration programs.
Beijing plans to send astronauts to the Moon by 2030 and build a research base at the lunar south pole – a region believed to contain water ice, where the US also hopes to establish a base.
The Chang’e-6 probe is expected to have returned to Earth with up to 2 kilograms of lunar dust and rocks from the far side of the moon, which will be analyzed by researchers in China before being opened to international scientists, according to the CNSA.
The results of analyzing the samples could help scientists analyze the evolution of the Moon, Earth and the solar system – while also helping China’s goal of using the Moon’s resources to further its exploration, experts say.
The samples were collected using a drill and robotic arm at a site within the sprawling South Pole-Aitken basin, an impact crater formed about 4 billion years ago on the far side of the Moon that is never visible from Earth.
An elevator then lifted them off the lunar surface and transferred them into lunar orbit to a reentry vehicle, which then traveled back to Earth after separating from its lunar orbiter.
The progress of Chang’e-6 – China’s most technically complex mission to date – has been followed with intense interest in the country since its launch on May 3.
Earlier this month, images of the lunar module displaying the Chinese flag and appearing to have punched the character “zhong” – short for China – into the lunar surface went viral on Chinese social media.
The lunar module’s return on Tuesday also comes after suspected debris from a separate Chinese rocket was seen crashing to the ground in southwest China on Saturday, leaving a trail of bright yellow smoke and sending residents running, according to videos on social media. Chinese social networks and sent to CNN by a local witness.
“Treasure” of the hidden side
The far side of the Moon has been a point of fascination for scientists since they first observed it in grainy black and white images taken by the Soviet Union’s Luna 3 probe in 1959 – and realized how different it was from the far side. Earth.
Absent were the lunar maria, or large dark plains of cooled lava that mark much of the moon’s near side. Instead, the other side appeared to show an impact record – covered in craters of different sizes and ages.
Decades later, and about five years since the Chang’e-4 mission made China the first and only country to complete a soft landing on the far side of the natural satellite, scientists both in China and around the world have high hopes. information that can be collected from samples.
“It’s a gold mine… a treasure chest,” said James Head, a professor of planetary geosciences at Brown University who, along with European scientists, collaborated with Chinese scientists in analyzing samples from the Chang’e-5 mission that returned samples. on the near side.
“International scientists are totally excited about the mission,” he said.
Head pointed to the destruction of many clues to evolutionary history due to shifting Earth’s tectonic plates and erosion that obscured the planet’s first billion years, including the period when life emerged.
“The Moon is really the cornerstone for understanding that because its surface has no tectonic plates – it’s actually a frozen record of what it was like in our early solar system,” he said, adding that understanding the composition of the moon Moon can not only help our understanding of the past, but also future exploration of the solar system.
While the stated focus of the Chang’e-6 mission is these broader scientific questions, experts say analyzing the composition and physical properties of the samples could also help advance efforts to learn how to use the Moon’s resources for future exploration. lunar and space.
“The mission [Chang’e-6] is focused on answering specific scientific questions, but the lunar soils collected on the mission can support future resource utilization,” said Yuqi Qian, a planetary geologist at the University of Hong Kong.
Lunar soil could be used in 3D printing to produce bricks for building research bases on the Moon, while some scientists were already working on discovering more economical and practical technologies to extract gases such as helium-3, oxygen and hydrogen from the soil, which could support further lunar exploration, he said.
Once they receive the samples, Chinese scientists are expected to share data and conduct joint research with international partners, before Beijing later opens the samples for access by international teams, according to statements from CNSA officials.
International teams had to wait about three years to request access to samples from the Chang’e-5 mission, but some of the first published research on these samples was from teams of Chinese and international scientists.
Race to the moon
Chang’e-6 – the sixth of eight scheduled missions in the Chang’e series – is widely seen as an important step forward in China’s goal of landing astronauts on the Moon in the coming years.
“Every step of the sample return mission process is exactly what you need to do to land humans on the Moon and return,” Head said.
“It should not go unnoticed by anyone that while on the one hand this is a scientific mission, the command and control aspects are exactly what you need for human lunar exploration, as well as things such as returning samples from Mars. .”
China’s ambitions to send astronauts to the Moon come at a time when the US intends to launch a manned “Artemis” mission as early as 2026 – in what would be America’s first such attempt in more than 50 years.
NASA chief Bill Nelson appeared to point to China’s pace as a driver of U.S. progress, telling lawmakers in April that the two countries were “in effect…in a race.”
“My concern is that they [cheguem ao polo sul] first and then say, ‘this is our area, you stay out’, because the south pole of the moon is an important part… We think there is water there and if there is water and then there is rocket fuel,” Nelson said.
China has sought to allay concerns about its ambitions, reiterating its stance that space exploration should “benefit all humanity” and actively recruiting partner countries for its planned international lunar research station.
The U.S. and China are not alone in focusing on the national prestige, potential scientific benefits, access to resources, and greater exploration of deep space 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 into the lunar surface.
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, touched down near the lunar south pole.
China is scheduled to launch its Chang’e-7 mission to the lunar south polar region in 2026, while Chang’e-8 will be launched in 2028 to carry out tests aimed at utilizing lunar resources in preparation for the research station. lunar, Chinese space officials said earlier this year.
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