China’s lunar probe Chang’e 6 launches as space competition with the US intensifies

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China on Friday launched an unmanned lunar mission aimed at bringing back samples from the far side of the moon for the first time, in what could be a major step forward for the country’s ambitious space program.

Chang’e 6, China’s most complex robotic lunar mission to date, was launched aboard a Long March 5 rocket from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on southern China’s Hainan Island, where space fans had gathered to witness the historic moment. I was launched aboard.

The launch aims to be a key milestone in China’s push to become the dominant space power, with plans to land astronauts on the moon and build a research base in Antarctica by 2030. This marks the start of the mission.

This comes as a growing number of countries, including the United States, are eyeing the strategic and scientific benefits of expanding lunar exploration in an increasingly competitive field.

China’s planned 53-day mission will see the Chang’e 6 lander land in a gaping crater on the moon’s far side, which never faces Earth. China became the first and only country to land on the far side of the moon with the Chang’e 4 mission in 2019.

Farside samples recovered by the Chang’e 6 lander could help scientists look back on the evolution of the moon and the solar system itself, and provide critical data to advance China’s lunar ambitions. .

“Chang’e 6 aims to achieve breakthroughs in lunar retrograde orbit design and control technology, intelligent sampling, takeoff and ascent technology, and automatic sample return on the far side of the moon,” Ge Ping said. said. The deputy director of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center said this from the launch site last week.

The Chang’e 6 probe will be a key test of China’s space capabilities in efforts to realize leader Xi Jinping’s “eternal dream” of developing China into a space power.

In recent years, China has been rapidly advancing space development in an area traditionally dominated by the United States and Russia.

The Chang’e mission, launched in 2007 and named after the moon goddess in Chinese mythology, made China in 2013 the first country to land a robotic moon landing in nearly 40 years. In 2022, China completed its own orbital space station, Tiangong.

The technically complex Chang’e 6 mission is a record of both Chang’e 4’s landing on the far side of the moon in 2019 and Chang’e 5’s successful return to Earth in 2020 with samples from the near side of the moon. Based on.

In order for Chang’e 6 to communicate with Earth from the far side of the moon, it will have to rely on Queqiao-2, a satellite launched into lunar orbit in March.

The spacecraft itself consists of four parts: the orbiter, lander, ascent vehicle, and reentry module.

The mission plan is for the Chang’e 6 lander to collect lunar dust and rocks after landing in the vast Antarctic Aitken Basin, which was formed about 4 billion years ago and is about 2,500 kilometers in diameter.

The Ascender spacecraft will then transport the samples to the lunar orbiter, where they will be transferred to the reentry module and returned to Earth.

James Head, a professor emeritus at Brown University who has worked with Chinese scientists leading the mission, said the complex mission is necessary to land Chinese astronauts on the moon in the next few years. “It goes through almost every stage.”

In addition to returning samples that could yield “fundamental new insights into the origin and early history of the Moon and our solar system,” the mission will include “these It also functions as “step robot training.”

China is moving closer to its 2030 goal of sending astronauts to the moon and building a research base in the next decade at the moon’s south pole, an area thought to contain water ice. , plans to launch two more missions.

Chang’e 7, scheduled for 2026, aims to explore resources at the moon’s south pole, while Chang’e 8, about two years later, will explore how to use lunar material in preparation for building a research base. Chinese officials said they may consider whether to do so. Said.

Friday’s launch comes as several countries ramp up their lunar plans, with attention focused on access to resources and further deep space exploration that a successful lunar mission could provide. Ta.

Last year, India landed its first spacecraft on the moon, while Russia’s first lunar mission in decades failed when its Luna 25 probe crashed into the moon’s surface.

In January, Japan became the fifth country to land a spacecraft on the moon, but its lunar lander, Moon Sniper, faced power problems due to an incorrect landing angle. The following month, IM-1, a NASA-funded mission designed by the Texas-based private company Intuitive Machines, landed near the South Pole.

It will be the first landing by a U.S.-built spacecraft in more than 50 years, but NASA plans to return U.S. astronauts to the moon’s surface as early as 2026 and set up a scientific base camp to explore the moon’s surface. One of several commercial mission programs.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson seemed to acknowledge last month that concerns about China’s pace and intentions are causing the U.S. to rush back to the moon, decades after the Apollo missions. .

“We believe that many of their so-called civilian space programs are military programs. In effect, I think we are competing,” Nelson told lawmakers last month. He added that there are concerns that if the astronauts arrive at a specific area of ​​the moon first, China may try to block them from entering or exiting the area.

China has long said it supports the peaceful uses of space and, like the United States, seeks to use its space capabilities to foster international goodwill.

This time, China said the Chang’e 6 mission carried scientific equipment and payloads from France, Italy, Pakistan and the European Space Agency.

“China hopes to strengthen cooperation with international countries and deepen international cooperation in the space field,” CNSA’s Ge told reporters the day before the launch.