Chang'e 6 returns with precious lunar samples

The landing marked the second time a spacecraft has ever arrived in the lunar far side.

The vast region had never been reached by any spacecraft until January 2019, when the Chang'e 4 probe landed in the South Pole-Aitken Basin. The Chang'e 4 surveyed areas surrounding its landing site but did not collect and send back samples.

The Chang'e 6 lander worked 49 hours on the lunar far side, using a mechanical arm and a drill operated to collect surface and underground materials. Meanwhile, several scientific apparatus were activated to conduct survey and analysis assignments.

After the tasks were completed, the sample-loaded ascender lifted off from the lunar surface and reached lunar orbit to dock with the reentry capsule to transfer the samples.

In the final leg of the mission, the orbiter and the reentry capsule flew back to Earth orbit before separating on Tuesday.

Before this mission, all of the lunar substances on Earth were collected from the near side of the moon through the United States' six Apollo manned landings, the former Soviet Union's three Luna robotic missions and China's Chang'e 5 unmanned mission.

The landscapes and physical characteristics of the far side, which permanently faces away from Earth, are very different from those of the near side, which is visible from Earth, according to scientists.

The new samples will probably offer researchers around the globe useful keys for answering questions about the moon, and will likely bring a range of invaluable scientific payoffs, they said.

The Chang'e 5 mission, which took place in the winter of 2020, gathered 1,731 grams of samples, the first lunar substances obtained since the Apollo era. It made China the third nation, after the United States and the former Soviet Union, to have collected lunar samples.

So far, Chang'e 5 lunar samples have enabled Chinese researchers to make a number of academic strides, including the discovery of the sixth new lunar mineral, named Changesite-(Y).