China’s Chang’e 6 mission successfully delivered the first ever samples from the far side of the Moon to Earth. But what happened to the lander that collected the lunar material?
Chang’e 6 launched May 3rd. The mission consisted of four spacecraft – an orbiter, a lander, an exit vehicle and a return capsule. Landing module landed in Apollo Crater on June 1 with the main task of collecting and drilling unique samples from the far side of the Moon and loading them into an ascender to be launched into lunar orbit.
The samples finally arrived on Earth on the 25th. touching down as planned in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia.
Meanwhile, the Chang’e 6 lander remains powered up Moon. It carried additional payloads, including a panoramic sensor and a small rover. Information on the fate of the lander was recently provided by the French space agency CNES, which contributed a radon degassing payload called DORN to the mission.
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“As planned, DORN was shut down shortly before Chang’e 6 lifted off from the lunar surface when the ground platform became inactive,” a CNES press attaché said in an email.
The winch explosion likely caused extensive damage to the lander, although the second managed to capture a recording of the event. Accordingly, all activities – inclusive autonomous deployment of the rover and imaging of the lander — were packed before takeoff. This included another European instrument which detected previously undetected charged particles on the surface of the moon.
If any activities were to be conducted after the liftoff, they would be completed by nightfall over Apollo Crater. As opposed to still functional Chang’e 3 and Chang’e 4 of near- and far-side lunar landers, the Chang’e 6 lander did not carry the radioisotope heaters needed for long-term lunar activities, which require surviving the deep cold of the long lunar night. Night at Apollo Crater began on June 11, and the sun rose over the site again on June 26.
Meanwhile, the ascender that carried samples from the moon to the waiting Chang’e 6 probe in lunar orbit is also now out of service. Although China’s space authorities have not commented on the fate of the ascender, the rocket was likely responsibly de-orbited to the moon after docking with the orbiter and transferring samples.
Radio amateur Scott Tilley watched for signals from the ascender, their absence indicating that he had been instructed to impact the moon.
A quick update on the Chang’e 6 mission. The Ascender was not seen today, indicating that it was knocked out of orbit and impacted on the moon like CE5 did after the expected mission timeline. The orbiter is behaving normally and has been in contact with Argentina and beyond all day today.June 8, 2024
China appears to have enacted a model protocol with its Chang’e 5 mission, which returned samples from the near side of the moon to Earth in late 2020.
With all other aspects concluded, the reentry capsule and the samples inside were flown to Beijing on Wednesday (June 26). The samples will soon be transferred to specially developed storage, analysis and distribution facilities for research.
Meanwhile, the lunar transfer satellite Queqiao 2, which helped facilitate the sample mission on the far side, will continue to orbit with its science payloads. It will support the ongoing Chang’e 4 mission and the upcoming one Chang’e 7 mission that will target the lunar south pole around 2026.