HELSINKI — The Chang’e-6 return capsule reentered Earth’s atmosphere early Tuesday, safely delivering unique lunar material expected to provide unique insights into the evolution of the moon.
The roughly 300-kilogram Chang’e-6 reentry capsule separated from the mission service module 5,000 kilometers away from Earth. The capsule then skipped off the atmosphere over the Atlantic Ocean at 1:41 a.m. Eastern (0541 UTC) June 25 to decelerate, before making a final descent.
The reentry capsule—containing around 2 kilograms of lunar material drilled and scooped from Apollo crater on the far side of the moon—landed in the grasslands of Siziwang Banner, Inner Mongolia at around 2:07 a.m. Teams recovered the capsule shortly after.
The event was the final act of a five-spacecraft, 53-day effort to collect the first samples ever collected from the lunar far side and delivered them to Earth.
Retrieval of the samples will allow extensive research into the composition and evolution of the far side of the moon. The collected material could provide insight into why the near and far sides are so different, and clues about the history of the early solar system.
“Chang’e 6 is the first mission in human history to return samples from the far side of the moon, which is a cause for celebration for all humanity,” Long Xiao, a Planetary geoscientist for China University of Geosciences in Wuhan, told SpaceNews.
“I am excited about the future research scientists will conduct on these samples, which will provide valuable insights for addressing many significant lunar science questions. This is a major event for scientists worldwide.”
The mission was supported by the Queqiao-2 lunar relay satellite launched in March. Chang’e-6 then launched on a Long March 5 rocket from Wenchang spaceport May 3. The four-spacecraft stack entered lunar orbit just under five days later.
Its lander-ascent vehicle combination landed at 41.6385°S, 206.0148°E in Apollo crater within the vast and scientifically intriguing South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin June 1.
“The Moon’s geological features are highly uneven. The far side of the moon differs significantly from the near side,” says Long. “The far side, affected by the South Pole-Aitken basin impact and lacking extensive maria regions, suggests that its geological evolution process is different from that of the near side.”
The SPA basin is a gigantic impact crater covering a vast portion of the far side of the moon. The impact which caused the basin is thought to have excavated material from the moon’s interior.
“Obtaining samples from the far side with a determined geological context is crucial for revealing the moon’s geological history,” Long states.
Meanwhile, the Chang’e-6 service module is expected to have fired its engines following separation of the return capsule to avoid reentering the atmosphere. The spacecraft could potentially be sent on an extended mission, as with the 2020 Chang’e-5 lunar nearside sample return mission.
China has already planned its next lunar missions. These will be the multi-spacecraft Chang’e-7 in 2026, with the Chang’e-8 in-situ resource utilization and technology test mission to follow around 2028.
These are described as precursor missions to the China-led International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). Super heavy-lift launches in the early 2030s will construct ILRS.
Before this, China aims to send a pair of astronauts to the lunar surface before 2030. A number of countries and organizations have signed up to the ILRS project.
