SEOUL, South Korea — China’s robotic Chang’e-6 lunar probe safely returned to Earth Tuesday afternoon after a 53-day mission, carrying to Earth the first-ever rock and soil samples from the far side of the moon.
It was the culmination of what the China National Space Administration dubs “a celestial adventure.”
The Chang’e — literally ”Moon Goddess,” a figure from Chinese folklore — space vehicle had lifted off on the tip of a Long March 5 rocket on May 13.
Its lander-ascender put down on the moon’s unexplored dark side on June 2 and picked up samples before its capsule returned to Earth Tuesday after a 236,000-mile round trip.
Mission Control in Beijing monitored its streaking re-entry. Back in Earth’s atmosphere, the Chang’e deployed a billowing red-and-white parachute and landed in grasslands in Siziwang Banner, in China’s Inner Mongolia.
As cheers erupted in Beijing, helicopters landed to secure the bell-shaped capsule, followed by a convoy of ground vehicles carrying technicians and officials. A Chinese flag was immediately planted beside the Chang’e’s hull, blistered and scorched black from re-entry.
Chinese President Xi Jinping offered his congratulations on the mission’s “complete success.”
“For the first time, we can get our hands on the far side of the moon,” Xu Yangson, director of international cooperation at the China National Space Administration told state broadcaster CGTN.
Analysts discussing the mission on CGTN said that information from the unprecedented samples will be shared internationally; some 1,000 institutes from around the world have applied for access.
The Chang’e had carried “piggyback” payloads from the European Space Agency, France, Italy and Pakistan, and it was not only Chinese who were celebrating its success.
French interplanetary scientist Pierre-Yves Meslin, who was engaged in the French payload aboard Chang’e, posted a clip on social media quoting 19th century poet Paul Verlaine: “A vast and tender consolation seems to fall from the sky/The moon illuminates the exquisite hour.”
Looking ahead, and citing the high cost of space exploration, Mr. Xu said, “We do expect extensive international collaborations.”
China plans a manned lunar mission by 2030. The engine for that mission was tested last month, and tests are expected imminently for the capsule.
Mr. Xu anticipates a range of robotic missions to inter-operate with eventual space labs and manned missions.
Tuesday’s landing is just the latest lunar feat by an Asian nation.
India soft-landed its homegrown Chandrayaan-3 on the moon in August 2023.
Japan’s “Moon Sniper” touched down in May this year, targeting a specific spot rather than a general area and potentially enabling multiple missions to establish a future lunar base.
Meanwhile, the NASA-led Artemis Program, working with allies including Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom, anticipates a manned moon mission in 2026.
Neither China nor Russia — which left a new crater on the Moon when its last mission crashed in September 2023 — are Artemis partners.
The last humans to walk on the moon were two crewmembers from NASA’s Apollo 17 in 1972. Now with scientists seeing the moon as both a potentially rich source of minerals and a possible platform for inter-planetary missions, the space race is back on.
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.
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