mission touched down inside Apollo Crater, within the giant South Pole-Aitken basin early at 6:23 a.m. Beijing Time on Sunday , according to Chinese space officials. It was 6:23 p.m. EDT on June 1 at the time of the landing. The probe"successfully landed in the pre-selected area," China's space agency said., which dropped a lander-rover combo onto the gray dirt in January 2019. No other country has matched such a feat.
A depiction of China's Chang'e 6 moon lander on the far side of the moon after landing on June 2, 2024.And Chang'e 6 will make further history for China if all goes according to plan: The mission aims to scoop up samples and send them back to Earth, giving researchers their first-ever up-close looks at material from this part ofon May 3 with a bold and unprecedented task: haul home samples from the moon's far side, which always faces away from us.
Every lunar surface mission before Chang'e 4 targeted the near side, largely because that area is easier to explore. It's harder to communicate with robots operating on the far side, for example; doing so generally requires special relay orbiters, which.
This material will then be launched into lunar orbit by a rocket that rode down with the lander. The sample container will rendezvous with the Chang'e 6 orbiter, then make the long trek back toThe China National Space Administration's Chang'e 6 sample-return probe and its mini-rover seen before launching to the far side of the moon.
And all of this robotic work will lead to something even bigger, if all goes according to plan: crewed missions to the moon, which China aims to start launching, which is targeting late 2026 for its first crewed lunar landing. The U.S. is also building a moon-exploration coalition via a diplomatic framework called theto keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: and joined the team in 2010.