China once again made history in space flight.
China’s Chang’e 6 robotic mission returned material from the mysterious far side of the moon to Earth on Tuesday (June 25) – something that has never been done before.
The milestone occurred Tuesday at 2:07 a.m. EDT (0607 GMT; 2:07 p.m. Beijing time) when the Chang’e 6 reentry vehicle touched down in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
Chang’e 6 consists of four modules: a lunar lander, a return capsule, an orbiter and an ascender (a small rocket carried by the lander).
Related: China’s Chang’e 6 probe found long-sought particles on the far side of the moon
This hardware launched on May 3 and arrived in lunar orbit five days later. On June 1, the lander landed in Apollo Crater, which lies in the South Pole-Aitken Basin (SPA), a 2,500-kilometer-wide impact feature on the far side of the Moon.
The lander collected about 4.4 pounds (2 kilograms) of lunar material using a shovel and a drill. This rare payload launched aboard the ascender on June 3 and rendezvoused with the mission’s orbiter a few days later.
The orbiter — carrying samples in its reentry capsule — began heading toward Earth around June 21, according to NASA. (China has provided several official updates on Chang’e 6’s timeline and milestones.) The sample’s long journey ended early Tuesday with the landing of the return capsule.
Chang’e 6 is not the first successful mission to return samples to the Moon; The Soviet Union, the United States, and China (with the Chang’e 5 mission in 2020) brought material back from Earth’s nearest neighbor. But all of these previous efforts collected dirt and rocks on the far side of the Moon, the one that always faces Earth.
The far side, which is very different from the near side, is more difficult to explore. Since the far side faces away from Earth, a relay satellite is needed to communicate with the spacecraft operating there. (China has so far launched two such relay satellites.) The far side is therefore little explored, so scientists are excited to get a close look at the Chang’e 6 samples.
The material could help answer some vexing questions about the early history of the solar system. For example, the SPA Basin formed 4.26 billion years ago—several hundred million years after most of the moon’s craters were ejected by asteroids and comets during a violent stretch known as the Late Heavy Bombardment.
“Was the SPA formed as part of the late heavy bombardment? Or was it a separate event? By obtaining accurate data for the basin and the craters that overlie it, we will be able to better understand the Moon’s history,” the nonprofit Planetary Society wrote. in the description of the Chang’e 6 mission.
“This also has implications for understanding the origins of life on Earth,” the Planetary Society added. “It is possible that asteroids brought water and organic materials to Earth during the Late Heavy Bombardment. Understanding the timing and circumstances of this event is critical to unpacking our origin story.”
Chang’e 6 was the second Chinese mission to the far side of the Moon; in January 2019, Chang’e 4 landed there with a rover called Yutu 2, which is still active today. No other nation has landed any hardware on the far side of the Moon.
China’s plans for the moon don’t end with Chang’e 6. The nation plans to launch Chang’e 7 and Chang’e 8 in 2026 and 2028, respectively. The latter mission will help test the technology needed to create a lunar base that China wants to build near the south pole of the rich to water ice in the 1930s.