Li Zhenzhou/VCG via Getty Images
China landed a spacecraft on the moon for the fourth time this weekend, successfully placing its Chang’e 6 lander in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon.
After landing Saturday evening (US time), the autonomous spacecraft will spend about 48 hours collecting samples. It will do so by two different means, drilling to collect material from underground, as well as using a robotic arm to collect regolith from the surface.
After that, part of the spacecraft is due to depart from the lunar surface – probably Monday evening US time – before the return flight to China. If successful, it would be the first time samples have been returned to Earth from the far side of the Moon.
Methodical approach
It is the country’s most ambitious lunar mission to date and gradually builds on previous Chinese spaceflights. With its Chang’e 3 mission in December 2013, the earth successfully landed a small vehicle and a rover on the near side of the moon. Five years later, it launched the transfer spacecraft Queqiao 1 and then the Chang’e 4 mission to the far side of the moon. No land had previously landed on the far side of the Moon, where there is no direct communication with Earth.
Then, in December 2020, China landed on the near side of the Moon with the Chang’e 5 mission. This spacecraft eventually returned 1.7 kg of lunar dust and rocks to Earth, tying China with the United States and the Soviet Union as the only countries to have returned samples from the moon.
With its latest mission, Chang’e 6, China has put together the elements of its last two lunar spacecraft to return material from the far less explored far side of the moon. Future robotic missions will focus on exploring the South Pole of the Moon in anticipation of human landings.
Geopolitical implications
China has set a goal of landing two astronauts on the moon by 2030 on an Apollo-like moon, with the eventual goal of building a “research station” at the south pole. This could happen later in the 2030s as China continues to expand its lunar architecture. Given the country’s direct approach to date, these timelines are feasible.
As it happens, NASA is leading its own international program back to the moon. NASA’s effort is more complicated, bringing together a mix of government-only, commercial and semi-private missions back to the moon. This Artemis program nominally has a target for the first human landing in 2026, but no reasonable observer believes that date is real – a more realistic time frame is 2028 to 2032.
NASA’s plans are considerably more complex, but ultimately should be more sustainable because they offer a combination of government and private investment. And they are more affordable in that they will use partially or mostly reusable rockets and spacecraft. NASA is pursuing a transition to reusable rockets and refueling in space, a bet on the future of space travel rather than a look back at what worked during the Apollo era. But it’s unclear whether this future of reusable spaceflight is five years away, as NASA hopes, or 20 years away.
The most dominant space story for the rest of this decade is how this “race” plays out, both in terms of whether China’s space program or NASA will reach the moon first, and just as critically, which nation has the more sustainable program. . For China, emulating the successes of NASA’s Apollo program may be enough. It would be a political failure for NASA.
The stakes are high
Although China’s plan has the advantage of simplicity, Greg Autry, director of space leadership at Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management, told Ars that the United States has the right approach in the long run because its commercial and government partnerships are more robust. .
“China’s human spaceflight program has been slow,” said Autry, a co-author Rising red moon in the space race between the US and China. “SpaceX has put more people into space in the past four years than China has since the first flight of its program more than 20 years ago. America has better technology and a better and more diverse collection of launch vehicles and dozens of companies working to solve bottlenecks.” we face off in landers and spacesuits.”
Another wrinkle in the competition is that China’s authoritarian government provides stability and the advantage of long-term planning. NASA is susceptible to changes in political priorities. Autry said the United States should stick with the Artemis plan, and leaders in Congress must continue to support NASA and pressure the agency to move forward with willingness.
For symbolic reasons, Autry said, the United States needs to land people back on the moon before China — even though NASA did so more than five decades ago. “If China wins this race, their model of authoritarian state socialism will gain traction and America will look more dysfunctional than ever,” he said.