• China landed an uncrewed spacecraft on the far side of the Moon on June 2, in its landmark mission to retrieve rock and soil samples from the dark lunar hemisphere.

• It is the first endeavour of its kind in the history of human lunar exploration.

• The far side of the Moon is not visible from Earth.

• On May 3, the Long March-5, China’s largest rocket, lifted off from Wenchang Space Launch Center on the southern island of Hainan with the more than 8 metric tonne Chang’e-6 probe.

• The Chang’e-6 craft, equipped with an array of tools and its own launcher, touched down in a gigantic impact crater called the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the Moon’s dark side.

• The payloads carried by the Chang’e-6 lander will work as planned and carry out scientific exploration missions.

• India became the first country to land near the little-explored lunar South Pole region last year when its Chandrayaan-3’s lander, carrying the Pragyaan rover successfully landed there.

• The side of the Moon perpetually facing away from the Earth is dotted with deep and dark craters, making communications and robotic landing operations more challenging.

• Given these challenges, lunar and space experts involved in the Chang’e-6 mission described the landing phase as a moment where the chance of failure is the highest.

• Chang’e-6 marks the world's third lunar landing this year: Japan’s SLIM lander touched down in January, followed the next month by a lander from US startup Intuitive Machines. 

Significance of the mission

• Earlier, 10 lunar sample-return missions were undertaken by the United States, the former Soviet Union and China, but all these samples were collected from the Moon’s near side.

• Since the first Chang’e mission in 2007, named after the mythical Chinese Moon goddess, China has made leaps forward in its lunar exploration.

• In 2020, Chang’e-5 marked the first time humans retrieved lunar samples in 44 years. China returned samples from the Moon’s near side, the first time anyone had done so since the former Soviet Union in 1976. 

• Samples brought back by the Chang’e-5 probe have helped scientists find that there were volcanic activities on the Moon’s near side around two billion years ago.

• Scientists say the Moon’s dark side holds great promise for research because its craters are less covered by ancient lava flows than the near side. Material collected from the dark side may better shed light on how the Moon formed in the first place.

How the samples will be collected?

• Chang’e-6 consists of four components: an orbiter, a lander, an ascender and a re-entry module.

• Using a scoop and drill, the Chang’e-6 lander will aim to collect 2 kg of lunar material over two days and bring it back to Earth.

• The samples will be transferred to a rocket booster atop the lander, which will launch back into space, tag up with another spacecraft in lunar orbit and return, with a landing in China’s Inner Mongolia region expected around June 25.

• If all goes as planned, the mission will provide China with a pristine record of the Moon’s 4.5 billion-year history and yield new clues on the solar system’s formation. 

• It will also allow for an unprecedented comparison between the dark, unexplored region with the Moon’s better understood Earth-facing side. A simulation lab for the Chang’e-6 probe will develop and verify sampling strategies and equipment control procedures. 

• The mission is poised to make breakthroughs in key technologies, such as automatic sample collection, take-off and ascent from the far side of the Moon.

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