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CWA # 1321, 18 May 2024
Global Politics Explainer
Chang’e 6 and China’s Lunar Exploration program

  Akhil Ajith

On 03 May, China launched its Chang’e-6 lunar probe aboard the Long March-5 Y8 carrier rocket from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in Hainan Province. This is a part of China’s overall ambitious space program to send a crewed lunar mission by 2030. The space mission will bring back the material from the far side of the moon for scientists to conduct research about the moon’s origin. The mission is part of China’s overall space exploration program, which increasingly competes with the US to become a new space power.

What is Chang’e-6?
Chang’e-6 is the latest of the series of lunar missions that are designed for orbits or moon landings. It is the first probe to bring back samples from the far side of the moon. The mission Chang’e is named after the Chinese moon goddess “Changa.” It will take approximately two months for the probe to complete the mission. 

On Chang'e-6, China will carry payloads from France, Italy, Sweden, and Pakistan. It includes France's outgassing RadoN detector, European Space Agency's negative ions detector, Pakistan's ICUBE-Q cubesat, and Italy's laser retroreflector.

Before Chang’e-6, China had sent five missions to the moon as part of its lunar space exploration program since 01 October 2007. This mission is part of China’s overall efforts to undertake a crewed lunar landing and the establishment of a lunar base on its south pole.

What is Chang’e- programme?
The Chang’e project also known as the Chinese Lunar Exploration Programme (CLEP) is an ongoing series of uncrewed moon missions by China National Space Administration (CNSA). The program is divided into four main operational phases which comprises orbital missions, soft landers, sample return and lunar robotic research station. 

On 24 October 2007, the first launch, Chang’e-1 was launched on a Long March 3A rocket. The mission scanned the entire Moon to generate a 3-D map to find the abundance and distribution of various elements on the lunar surface. On 1 October 2010, the second mission, Chang’e-2 was launched on a Long March 3C rocket to map the moon in more detail than the previous mission. The Chang’e-2’s orbiter left the lunar orbit towards the L2 Lagrangian point to test the TT&C network. On 02 December 2013, Chang’e-3 was launched on a Long March 3B rocket and landed on the moon on 14 December 2013. It carried a lunar rover named Yutu to explore the lunar surface for three months and successfully conducted the study of the structure and dynamics of earth’s plasmasphere.

On 07 December 2018, the Chang’e-4 was launched and landed on lunar surface on 03 January 2019. It deployed its Yutu-2 rover on the South Pole - Atiken Basin on the moon's far side. This mission was a historic success as China became the first country to land a rover on the moon’s far side. On 23 November 2020, the Chang’e-5 was launched and collected 1.7kgs of lunar soil back to Earth on 16 December 2020. The Chang’e-5 mission had placed China in the elite group of countries to bring back lunar soil samples alongside the US, and the former Soviet Union.

China's lunar exploration program includes missions to Mars, asteroids, and other celestial bodies. The Chang'e mission series was designed in the 1990s and, so far, has achieved 100 per cent success rate in its mission objectives. It is a long-term project to build a permanent research station on the moon. China has planned three lunar probe missions over the next four years, with the seventh and eighth missions in development.

According to CNSA, Chang'e-7 is expected to launch in 2026 and will search for water at the lunar south pole. Chang'e-8 will survey material in the same region to build future infrastructure or research stations by the 2030s.

Why is China interested in Moon’s far side?
The US, the former Soviet Union, and China have successfully gathered samples from the near side of the moon and brought them to Earth for various scientific experiments. However, the moon's far side is different from the near side. It has a thicker crust, more craters, and fewer plains with the possible presence of volcanic deposits. With a lunar far side sample, scientists can begin to probe why the two sides of the moon are so different. Scientists at John Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Lab revealed that the moon’s far side has a different geochemical composition, making it interesting for many countries to resolve the mystery of the lunar surface.

China’s mission is to collect samples from the south pole Aitken Basin, the largest and oldest impact crater on the moon. It is believed that the crater has material from the lunar mantle, which, if retrieved, can be used to study the moon in detail. 

References:
“China launches Chang’e-6 probe to study dark side of the moon,” Al-Jazeera, 03 May 2024
“About China's lunar mission: Chang'e series lunar probes,” Xinhua, 03 May 2024
Ashley Strickland, “The lunar far side is wildly different from what we see. Scientists want to know why,” CNN, 03 May 2024
“Nasa chief warns China is masking military presence in space with civilian programs,” The Guardian, 18 April 2024

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