Chang’e-6 spacecraft brings lunar dust to Earth, revealing China’s 'Moon agenda'

On June 25, 2024, lunar samples collected by China’s Chang’e-6 mission from the Moon’s far side were delivered to Earth by a capsule called Returner. There was a live telecast for this landing event aired by CGTN TV. After the landing of this capsule, the cargo was taken to Beijing for analysis. This is so far the first time in history that scientists would have an opportunity to analyse the rock and soil samples from the far side of the Moon.

To date, scientists have analysed all lunar materials collected from the near side of the Moon. These samples were collected during the various manned and unmanned missions to the Moon, which included the Apollo manned missions of the US, three Luna robotic missions launched by the erstwhile USSR, and more recently, the mission undertaken by China, the Chang’e-5 mission.

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The return capsule of the Chang’e-5 mission landed on December 16, 2020, in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (same landing site as Chang’e-6). It had brought back 1,731 grams of precious lunar dust, which constitutes the fine, dry particles of the Moon’s soil. Lunar dust is the portion of the regolith that is less than 20 µm in size. The earlier Moon soil sample return mission happened almost 45 years ago, when, during August 1976, the USSR’s Luna 24 brought back 170 grams of lunar dust.

These samples, which are now in the custody of China, would also be made available to other scientists for study and further analysis. The first obvious step in this analysis would be to ‘compare and contrast’ the samples from the near and far sides of the Moon. Much is expected from these new sets of samples. This could offer some answers to the Moon’s evolutionary history. There is also the possibility that the detailed analysis could even offer some clues about the origins of our solar system. The Chang’e-6 mission had international partners like France, Italy, the European Union, and Pakistan. Even during the landing of the returner of Chang’e-6, apart from China’s ground station in Argentina, assistance was provided by the ground stations of the European Space Agency (ESA).

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The Chinese Lunar Exploration Programme of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) is a very intricate lunar programme that began with the launch of the Chang’e-1 orbiter on October 24, 2007 and was followed by the Chang’e-2 mission launched on October 1, 2010. Both of these missions were orbiter missions. These satellites established in the lunar orbit were sending photographs of the lunar surface. Chang’e-1 transmitted the data until 2009, and Chang’e-2 till 2014. This could be viewed as the first phase of China’s lunar agenda. The second phase involved soft landing on the lunar surface and two successful missions (Chang’e-3 and 4, landing happened on December 14, 2013 and January 3, 2019, respectively) undertaken. The landing zones for both of these missions were different. Chang’e 4 did land on the far side of the Mn.

The third phase started with the successful return of the Moon dust sample by Chang’e-5 (November 23, 2020) to the surface of the Earth. The recent Chang’e-6 mission is more or less similar, except that it has landed on the far side of the Moon. This mission was a bit complicated as compared to the Chang’e-5 mission.

China’s Chang’e-6 spacecraft, while on its way to the Earth to deliver samples collected from the far side of the Moon, had to undergo various operations during its 53-day trip. The mission had begun on May 3, 2024, with a successful launch. Within a few days, the craft entered lunar orbit, and the unit consisting of a lander, ascender, and rover separated from the orbiter vehicle and descended to the lunar surface.

The mission landed on the Moon at the Apollo crater within the vast South Pole-Aitken basin on June 1. It was a fully autonomous soft landing, and there was support from the Queqiao-2 relay satellite. Subsequently, on June 3, 2024, the ascender with collected samples weighing around 2 kilograms was taken off from the far side of the Moon, and after three days, it rendezvoused and docked with the orbiter/returner in lunar orbit. This was followed by a careful transfer of the returner. The return journey towards Earth had started around June 21.

China has a well-defined ‘Moon agenda’. By 2026, they would launch a mission: a multi-spacecraft Chang’e-7. The Chang’e-8 in-situ resource utilisation and technology test mission will follow around 2028. China aims to send a pair of astronauts (taikonauts) to the lunar surface around 2030. Today, reaching the Moon has both scientific and geopolitical significance. It is apparent that the US wants to become the first state in the 21st century to undertake the human Moon landing, while China is also keen to do it before the US. There appears to be some sort of race between these two major powers.

Presently, both China and the US are pushing for their individual lunar programmes under the garb of multilateral programmes. They understand that developing such major space programmes requires major technological and financial investments. NASA’s Artemis Accords and the China-Russia proposal to build a Lunar Research Station are two recent programmes attracting global attention. These ideas are designed in such a fashion that they are expected to impact the long-term vision of the Moon (and Mars). Here, the hidden agenda is to define a convenient rule-based mechanism for conducting activities in space (on the Moon and Mars) so that these states and their private space sector will have an upper hand in the future in the management of planetary resources.

All in all, the success of Chang’e-6 proves the robustness of China’s space program. The Chinese are very systematically making progress towards their ambition of sending a human to the Moon by 2030. In the domain of space, normally it becomes difficult to meet deadlines owing to various challenges; however, so far, China has been broadly able to uphold its targets. Various processes undertaken during the Change’-6 mission actually match China’s proposed human mission, and the Chinese have imaginatively used them to fine-tune the drill for such an ambitious project.

The author is Deputy Director General, MP-IDSA, New Delhi. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.