China’s Chang’e-6 spacecraft made a safe landing on the Moon’s uncharted far side before relaunching with priceless soil samples in tow. In one of China’s most complex lunar missions to date, the probe descended on the Moon over a month after taking off from Earth in a stack of four spacecraft.
The project not only demonstrates China’s increasing prowess in space research, but it also provides some insight into the extent of the nation’s Solar System goals.
The primary goal of Chang’e-6 is to bring the first samples safely back to Earth from the far side of the moon.
possibly returning with fresh information about our planet, our nearest neighbor, and the early Solar System. China’s quartet of spacecraft needs to execute a complex cosmic dance in order to do this.
Chang’e-6 took out on May 3 from the Wenchange Space Launch Centre and traveled to the Moon for about 4.5 days. A lander broke apart from the orbiter and headed for a landing spot once it was in orbit around the moon. Queqiao-2, a communications relay satellite launched by China in March, made operations and communications with Earth possible because the far side of the Moon is never facing Earth.
