CHANG’E-6 (Syllabus: GS Paper 3 – Sci and Tech)

Context: China launched the Chang'e-6 lunar probe atop the Long March-5 Y8 carrier rocket from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in south China's Hainan Province.

Chang’e-6

• Launched by: China's National Space Administration spearheads the Chang'e 6 mission.
• Carried by: The mission is propelled into space by the Long March-5 Y8 rocket from the Wenchang Space Launch Site in Hainan.
• Components: The mission comprises an orbiter, a lander, an ascender, and a re-entry module.
• Objective: Chang'e 6 aims to collect and return samples from the far side of the moon back to Earth.
• Mission Operations
• Sample Collection and Return: The ascender collects lunar dust and rocks, transporting them to the lunar orbiter for transfer to the re-entry module, which will bring them back to Earth.

o This is the first endeavor of its kind in the history of human lunar exploration.

• International Collaborations: Scientific instruments from France, Italy, and the European Space Agency/Sweden, along with a Pakistani payload, contribute to the mission's scientific objectives.
• Significance: This mission marks the first attempt in human lunar exploration history to collect and return samples from the moon's surface.
• Chang'e 4: Landed in the Von Karman crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin in 2019, making history with the Yutu-2 rover's successful soft landing on the moon's far side.
• Chang'e 5: Its descender and lander touched down on Mons Rumker, a vast volcanic plain on the moon.