BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese spacecraft landed on the far side of the moon on Sunday to collect soil and rock samples that could offer insight into differences between the less-explored region and the better-known near side.
The landing module touched down in a huge crater known as the South Pole-Aitken Basin at 6:23 a.m. Beijing time, according to the China National Space Administration.
The mission is the sixth in the Chang’e lunar probe program, named after the Chinese moon goddess, and the second designed to return samples from the lunar near-surface, after Chang’e-5 in 2020.
The moon plan is part of growing competition with the United States, which remains the leader in space exploration, and other nations including Japan and India. China has launched its own space station into orbit and regularly sends astronauts there.
The emerging world power aims to put humans on the moon by 2030, which would make it the second country to do so after the United States, which also plans to land astronauts on the moon again for the first time in more than 50 years, though NASA earlier this year pushed back that target date to 2026.
U.S. efforts to launch spacecraft using private rockets have been postponed multiple times, and a last-minute computer glitch canceled Boeing’s first planned launch of astronauts on Saturday.
Early Saturday morning, a Japanese billionaire called off plans to orbit the moon due to uncertainty over the development of SpaceX’s giant rocket, which NASA plans to use to send astronauts to the moon.
In China’s current mission, the lander is expected to use its mechanical arm and drill to collect up to 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of surface and subsurface material over about two days.
An elevator atop the lander will then deliver the samples in a metal vacuum chamber to another module orbiting the moon, where they will be transferred to a re-entry capsule for a return to Earth around June 25 in the desert of China’s Inner Mongolia region.
Missions to the far side of the moon will be more difficult because it faces away from Earth and would require relay satellites to maintain communications, and the terrain is rougher and there are fewer flat areas to land on.
