2024-05-03 18:43:00
China has successfully launched a launch vehicle with the Chang’e-6 probe, which for the first time in history is expected to collect soil samples from the far side of the Moon and deliver them to Earth.
The rocket took off at 5:27 p.m. Beijing time (12:27 p.m. Moscow time) from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on southern China’s Hainan Island. Chinese TV channels broadcast broadcast launch.
At the beginning of June, a Chinese vehicle weighing more than eight tons should land in the Apollo crater, located in the South Pole-Aitken basin, on the far side of the Moon. The probe will then collect two kilograms of soil and bring it back to Earth for analysis. The mission is expected to last 53 days.
If successful, China will become the first country to receive samples from the far side of the Moon, writes Reuters.
Chang’e 6 was also part of the long-term project to create the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), led by China and Russia. It is assumed that the station will become a base for deep space exploration.
In the summer of 2023, for the first time in almost 50 years, Russia launched a rocket with an automatic station “Luna-25”, which was supposed to land on the surface of the satellite. However, the station crashed when it collided with the surface of the Moon – as Roscosmos put it, “due to a control system failure.”
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