The first ever lunar samples will be collected on the far side of the moon

Chang’e 7 returns to the far side of the Moon: a long-term mission to explore the late heavy bombardment and Earth’s origins

After landing at the South Pole–Aitken Basin on the far side of the Moon, the probe used its robotic arm and drilling tools to take soil and rock samples. France, Italy, and the European Space Agency were the principal funders of it.

It will help scientists understand the terrain of the Moon’s far side and shed light on the early history of the Moon and Earth. It’s also a significant milestone in the escalating global space race to establish a presence on the Moon.

According to The Associated Press, the China National Space Administration was called a “landmark achievement of our country’s efforts at becoming a space and technological power” by the president.

The impact crater at the South Pole was formed some 4.26 billion years ago. Compared to the smoother near side of the Moon, the far side is pockmarked with craters from ancient collisions. The Moon has craters that are important questions for understanding its history.

“This also has implications for understanding the origins of life on Earth,” the nonprofit The Planetary Society wrote in a post about Chang’e 6 earlier this year, citing a theory that asteroids might have carried water and organic materials to Earth during an event known as the Late Heavy Bombardment. There’s been more scrutiny lately into how fierce that bombardment actually was. This question can be answered with long-awaited samples from the far side of the moon.

China plans to send its Chang’e 7 spacecraft to the Moon’s south pole in 2026 to search for water and other resources that could potentially support long-term missions on the Moon. NASA wants to send the first humans to the south pole region of the moon in the year 2046.

International researchers are hoping to work on Chang’e-6 samples, too. Qing-zhu Yin, a geochemist at the University of California, Davis, wants to use them to work out the timing of the initiation and termination of the lunar magma ocean in the aftermath of the giant impact that formed the Moon.

At about 1:20 p.m. Beijing time on Tuesday, the landing procedure kicked off. The capsule dropped from the sky and plunged down at a rate of 11.2 kilometres a second. A parachute was deployed to assist with the decent. A recovery team located the capsule shortly after it landed. Once the capsule isprocessed on site, it will be sent to Beijing where it will be opened and samples taken for scientific analysis and storage.

Patrick Pinet, a lunar geologist at the Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology, in Toulouse, France, watched the mission unfold in real time from a control room in Beijing. He says he has seen professional mastery of the very complex steps along the way.

Jonathan said that China’s ability to carry out highly complex missions at moon distance is robust. The technologies to control a spacecraft and communicate with it, to manoeuvre in lunar orbit, land, take off and rendezvous “will be important to have well in control for a human lunar mission in the near future”, he says.

More than 200 scientists from Chinese universities and research institutes met in Beijing to discuss the scientific questions they want to address by analyzing the Chang’e-6 samples. Three problems were voted on by participants. The top question to explore is why the Moon’s two faces are so different, followed by what the composition of deeper lunar structures is and when the SPA basin formed.

The moon had a negative ions detection by NILS. It is possible to understand the lunar surface environment with the help of these particles. “A lot more work is needed before we could talk about the species and quantities of the ions,” says NILS project manager Neil Melville, who is based in The Hague, the Netherlands.

Pierre-Yves Meslin, a principal investigator of DORN at IRAP, says his team recorded 19 hours of good-quality data during the surface operations. We can tell that the instrument’s performance has been met when we analyze the scientific data, because we are now working on the calibration and analysis. “The Chinese and French members of the DORN team had very successful teamwork, and we received great support from the China National Space Administration and the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center, among others. We really felt part of the mission.”

The Missions of China to establish a permanent Moon base: Namrata Goswami, An Arizona State University physicist and space-policy researcher

The three missions are part of China’s larger lunar programme to establish a Moon base by the mid-2030s, says Namrata Goswami, a space-policy researcher at Arizona State University in Phoenix. China’s ability to execute their space missions on time means that they will establish the first ever permanent presence on the Moon.