China has achieved a significant milestone by successfully launching its historic mission to collect rocks and soil from the far side of the Moon. This endeavour marks the first time any country has embarked on such an ambitious attempt.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced that the Long March-5, China’s largest rocket, successfully launched the Chang’e-6 probe from the Wenchang Space Launch Centre on the southern island of Hainan. The launch took place at around 5:27 pm local time, with the probe weighing more than eight metric tonnes.

Scientists, diplomats, and space agency officials from France, Italy, Pakistan, and the European Space Agency (ESA) attended the launch. All of these countries have payloads aboard the rocket for studying the Moon.

Pierre-Yves Meslin, a French researcher involved in one of the scientific objectives of the Chang'e-6 mission, expressed surprise at China's ability to develop such an ambitious and successful program in a short period, as quoted by Reuters. Ge Ping, deputy director of the CNSA's Lunar Exploration and Space Program, noted that no United States-based organisation applied for a payload spot.

American law prohibits Beijing from collaborating with the US space agency NASA, resulting in the absence of collaboration between the two entities.

Chang'e-6 is assigned the task of landing in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the Moon, which faces away from Earth, to retrieve samples. The mission aims to collect two kilograms of soil and rocks from the landing site and transport them back to Earth for detailed analysis.

Neil Melville-Kenney, a technical officer at ESA collaborating with Chinese researchers on one of the Chang'e-6 payloads, highlighted the mystique surrounding the far side of the moon, noting that it has been largely unexplored except for robotic probes and a few human missions.

The Chinese spacecraft will depend on a relay satellite, recently deployed and currently orbiting the Moon, throughout its 53-day mission. Upon separation from the rocket, it is estimated to take around four to five days for the probe to reach the Moon, with a landing on the far side of the lunar surface anticipated in June.

Following landing, the probe, named after the Chinese Moon goddess, will spend approximately two days collecting samples before beginning its return journey to Earth. The spacecraft is expected to land in Inner Mongolia upon its return.

Image source: South China morning post