A probe launched by China in early May landed on the far side of the Moon to collect samples, the China News agency announced on Sunday. This new milestone achieved constitutes progress for the country’s ambitious space program.
The Chang’e 6 probe, which took off from the Wenchang space launch center on the tropical island of Hainan (south), landed as planned in the immense South Pole-Aitken basin, one of the most large known impact craters in the solar system, said the Xinhua news agency, citing the Chinese Space Administration.
This 53-day mission launched on May 3 should make it possible, according to the state agency, to take the very first samples on the far side of the Moon, a rarely explored region of the Earth’s satellite. The probe will attempt to collect lunar material and conduct other experiments in its landing zone.
To do this, the device will be able to use its drill to recover samples from beneath the surface, as well as its robotic arm to grab material, directly on the surface in this case.
Return to Earth
The process should be completed in the next two days, Xinhua said. Chang’e 6 will then attempt to leave from the far side of the Moon.
In 2019, China had already placed a device on the far side of the Moon, but it had not brought back any samples.
Scientists believe that the far side of the Moon – so called because it is invisible from Earth and not because it never captures the sun’s rays – is very promising for research, because its craters are less covered by ancient lava flows than those of the near and visible side. It could therefore be easier to collect samples there, in order to better understand how the Moon was formed.
“The samples collected by Chang’e 6 will have a geological age of around four billion years,” explained Ge Ping, vice director of the Chinese Center for Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering.
Great space ambitions
China has significantly expanded its space programs under President Xi Jinping, pumping billions of dollars into the sector in a bid to catch up with leaders in the United States and Russia. It has already recorded several successes, notably the construction of the Tiangong (“heavenly palace”) space station, where a new crew of three astronauts was sent in April.
China also landed a rover (a small motorized “rover”) on Mars. It is also the third country in the world to have sent a human into space on its own.
Beijing aims to send a manned mission to the Moon by 2030 and plans to build a base there. The rapid progress of the Chinese space program, however, arouses concern in Washington.
In April, Bill Nelson, the head of NASA, affirmed that the United States was engaged in a “race” with China. “We believe that a large part of what they call their civilian space program is, in fact, a military program,” he told a House spending committee in Washington.
This article was automatically published. Sources: ats / afp
