The launch of the Ghang’e 6 mission marked China’s most complex lunar space mission (AENC).
On Friday, the Chinese lunar mission launched the Chang’e 6 robotic probe to the far side of the moon. The mission seeks to collect soil samples and return them to Earth, which is an achievement that has never happened before and a major step forward. It will be introduced on the China National Space Administration’s (AENC) flight, which aims to send astronauts to the moon by 2030 and build a research base at the lunar south pole.
“Chang’e 6 aims to advance lunar orbit design and control technology, intelligent sample collection, liftoff, ascent, and automatic return technologies that allow soil samples from the far side of the Moon to reach us,” said Ji Ping, deputy lunar director. The Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center, a private body of the AENC.
The probe was launched via a Long March 5 (Changzheng 5) rocket from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on Hainan Island in southern China. The duration of the mission is 53 days, and when it lands on the moon on the other side that never faces the Earth, it will be the second time that China visits the other side of the moon, the first on the Chang River. e4, in 2019, made China the only country to reach the lunar region. It was also the only country in 40 years that succeeded in sending robots to the moon in 2013, after space development in North America stopped and slowed, after some of its ships exploded and a large part of its capital was privatized. NASA.
Samples collected by the Chang’e 6 mission could reveal how the Moon evolved and provide new information for future Chinese exploration. It will also determine the geological differences between the two sides of the Moon.
“China has made extraordinary progress, especially in the last 10 years, but it is very secretive,” NASA chief Bill Nelson said. The United States is waging a “new space race,” previously against the Soviet Union, and now against China, as the American director says. NASA also plans to send astronauts to the moon by 2026.
