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China’s Chang’e-6 lunar module returned to Earth on Tuesday, successfully completing its landmark project to pack the first samples from the far side of the moon in a significant step forward for the country’s enthusiastic space program.
The reentry module “successfully landed” in a designated area in China’s northern Inner Mongolia region at 2 p.m. local time, according to state broadcaster CCTV. A livestream through CCTV showed the module touching down sick via parachute to thunderous applause in the project control room.
“The Chang’e-6 lunar exploration mission has been a complete success,” Zhang Kejian, head of China National Range Management (CNSA), told the monitor room.
According to CCTV, a search team located the module minutes after landing. The livestream showed a colleague testing the module, which was lying in a garden near a Chinese flag.
This successful project is an important milestone in China’s “eternal dream” – as stated by Chinese leader Xi Jinping – to establish the country as a major regional power and develop as many countries, including the US, Has gone. Developed their own lunar exploration techniques.
In a congratulatory message on Tuesday, Xi described the undertaking as “another historic achievement in building a strong country in space, science and technology.”
Beijing plans to send astronauts to the Moon by 2030 and build a research base at the moon’s south pole – a pocket believed to contain H2O ice, where the US also hopes to establish a base.
The Chang’e-6 probe is estimated 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 up for exploration. According to CNSA, entry through Global Scientists.
Implications of studying the samples could help scientists re-understand the evolution of the Moon, Earth and the Sun Machine – experts say life on the Moon is China’s plan to use the resources there to further its exploration. Also helping in the effort.
The samples were collected using a drill and robotic arm from a location inside the vast South Pole-Aitken Basin, an impressive crater formed on the far side of the Moon about 4 billion years ago, rarely seen on Earth. It is optical for. ,
An ascent later picked them up from the lunar surface and transferred them to a re-entry automobile in lunar orbit, which then separated from its lunar orbit and returned to Earth.
The launch of Chang’e-6 – China’s most technologically complex project for a generation – has been embraced with intense enthusiasm in the country since its inauguration on May 3.
Earlier in the day, photos of the lunar lander showing the Chinese flag and drilling nature “Zhong” – shorthand for China – on the moon’s surface went viral on Chinese-language social media.
Suspected particles from an independent Chinese rocket were found falling in a region of southwest China on Saturday, following the return of the lunar module on Tuesday, leaving a trail of brilliant yellow smoke and sending villagers fleeing, video showed. Is. Sent to CNN via Chinese language social media and a local observer.
The far side of the Moon has been a subject of somewhat of a fascination for scientists since they first saw it in grainy, dark-and-white photographs taken by the Soviet Union’s Luna 3 spacecraft in 1959 – and discovered just how different it looked. used to do. From the aspect related to earth.
Absent were lunar maria, or the vast, lightless fields of cooled lava that obscure most of the moon’s near side. Rather, the far-reaching aspect is thought to display a document of the impact – lined with craters of various sizes and ages.
Over the next several decades, and about five years after the Chang’e-4 project, China became the first and best country to accomplish a comfortable landing at long distances, scientists in China and around the world have high expectations for the guidance that will be given to the samples. can be obtained.
“It’s a gold mine… a treasure chest,” said James Head, professor of planetary geology at Brown College, who, along with the ECU scientists, examined samples from the Chang’e-5 project. Collaborated with, who returned to near-favor. Samples. “International scientists are completely excited about the mission,” he said.
Head pointed to the loss of many clues to the evolutionary historical past due to the sliding and erosion of Earth’s plate tectonics, which has obscured the planet’s first several billion years, including the period from the emergence of the year.
“The moon is really the cornerstone for understanding this because it doesn’t have plate tectonics on its surface – it’s really a frozen record of what it was like in our early solar system,” he said, adding that the moon’s composition is now known. Can be detected will not only help us trace the day-to-day operation of the solar machine.
On the off chance that the mentioned focal point of the Chang’e-6 project is broader diagnostic questions, experts say that the study of the composition and physical structures of the samples will help in knowing the value of resources on the Moon for daily lunar and space exploration. Efforts may also be helpful. ,
“The (Chang’e-6) mission is focused on answering specific scientific questions, but lunar soil collected from the mission could support future resource use,” said Yuki Qian, a planetary geologist at Hong Kong College.
Lunar terrain can be used for 3D printing to produce bricks to build study stations on the Moon, with some scientists already exploring less expensive and Working on the discovery of intelligent technologies. Which could help in further lunar exploration, he said.
According to statements from CNSA officials, after receiving the samples, Chinese scientists are expected to share data and conduct joint research with global partners before Beijing next opens the samples for access through global groups. .
World teams had to wait nearly three years to gain access to samples from the Chang’e-5 project, although the earliest published research on those samples was from teams of Chinese and global scientists.
Chang’e-6 – the 6th of 8 planned missions within the Chang’e sequence – is widely touted as a notable step forward in China’s effort to deploy astronauts to the Moon in the coming years.
“Each step in the sample return mission process is exactly what you need to do to land humans on the Moon and return,” Head said. “One should not forget that on the one hand, this is a scientific mission, the command and control aspects are exactly what you need for lunar human exploration as well as things like Mars sample return.”
China’s ambition to send astronauts to the Moon comes as the US aims to launch a crewed “Artemis” project as early as 2026 – the United States’ first such attempt in more than 50 years Could.
NASA head Andrew Nelson told lawmakers in April that the two countries are “actually … in a race,” pointing to China as a driving force in the US.
“My concern is that they get (to the south pole) first and then say, ‘This is our area, you stay out,’ because the south pole of the moon is a significant part… We think there’s water there And if there’s water, then there’s rocket fuel,” Nelson noted.
China has sought to address concerns about its ambitions, reiterating its position that space exploration will “benefit all mankind” and actively recruiting nation partners for its planned global lunar analysis station. Used to be.
China and the US are not alone in keeping an eye on the nationwide situation, the potential clinical benefits, access to sources and additional deep space exploration that a successful Moon mission could provide.
Seizing the occasion, India landed its first spacecraft on the Moon, Russia’s first lunar venture in several years failed when its Luna 25 probe crashed on the lunar surface.
In January, Japan became the 5th country to land a spacecraft on the Moon, even though its Moon Sniper lander faced energy problems due to a flawed landing perspective. Please note the day IM-1, a NASA-funded project designed by Texas-based private company Intuitive Machines, approaches the Moon’s south pole.
China is scheduled to inaugurate its Chang’e-7 project in the south pole region of the Moon in 2026, with Chang’e-8 to be launched in 2028 to conduct tests aimed at harnessing lunar resources in preparation for a lunar research station. . , the Chinese language area government had previously mentioned on this occasion.
This story has been updated with additional features.