China’s Chang’e-6 lunar mission returns to Earth with historic samples from the back | CNN

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China’s Chang’e-6 lunar module returned to Earth on Tuesday, successfully completing its historic mission to collect the first samples from the far side of the moon, a crucial step forward for the country’s ambitious space program.

The reentry module “successfully landed” in a designated zone in the northern Chinese region of Inner Mongolia shortly after 2 p.m. local time, state broadcaster CCTV reported. A livestream broadcast by CCTV showed the module touching down by parachute to applause in the mission’s control room.

“The Chang’e-6 lunar exploration mission was a complete success,” said Zhang Kejian, head of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), from the control room.

According to CCTV, a search team found the module minutes after it landed. The livestream showed a worker checking the module, which was lying on a grassy field next to a Chinese flag.

The successful mission is an important milestone in China’s “eternal dream” – as Chinese President Xi Jinping put it – of establishing the country as a leading space power. It comes at a time when many countries, including the United States, are also stepping up their own lunar exploration programs.

In a congratulatory message on Tuesday, Xi praised the mission as “another milestone in building a strong country in space and science and technology.”

Beijing plans to send astronauts to the moon by 2030 and build a research base at the moon’s south pole – a region believed to contain water ice and where the United States also wants to build a base.

According to CNSA, the Chang’e-6 probe is said to have brought back to Earth up to two kilograms of lunar dust and rocks from the far side of the moon. These will be analyzed by researchers in China before being released to international scientists.

The results from analyzing the samples could help scientists gain insights into the evolution of the moon, Earth and the solar system – while also supporting China’s goal of using the moon’s resources for further exploration, experts say.

The samples were collected using a drill and a robotic arm at a site in the extensive South Pole-Aitken Basin, an impact crater formed on the far side of the Moon about four billion years ago and not visible from Earth.

They were then lifted off the lunar surface by an ascent vehicle and carried in lunar orbit to a reentry vehicle, which then separated from its lunar orbiter and flew back to Earth.

The progress of Chang’e-6 – China’s most technically complex mission to date – has been followed with great interest in the country since its launch on May 3.

Earlier this month, images of the lunar module bearing the Chinese flag and apparently having drilled the character “Zhong” – the abbreviation for China – into the lunar surface circulated on Chinese social media.

The lunar lander’s return on Tuesday also came after suspected debris from another Chinese rocket crashed to the ground in southwest China on Saturday, leaving a trail of bright yellow smoke that sent villagers fleeing, according to videos on Chinese social media sent to CNN by a local witness.

The far side of the Moon has fascinated scientists ever since they first saw it in grainy black-and-white images from the Soviet space probe Luna 3 in 1959 and realized how different it was from the side facing Earth.

It lacked the lunar seas, large, dark plains of cooled lava that dot much of the moon’s front side. Instead, the back side appeared to show impact marks – dotted with craters of varying sizes and ages.

Decades later, and about five years after China became the first and only country to make a soft landing on the far side of the moon with the Chang’e-4 mission, scientists from China and around the world have high hopes for the information that can be obtained from the samples.

“It’s a gold mine … a treasure trove,” said James Head, a professor of planetary geology at Brown University who, along with European scientists, has been working with Chinese scientists analyzing samples from the Chang’e-5 mission, which brought back samples from the nearby site. “International scientists are totally excited about the mission,” he said.

Head pointed out that shifts in the Earth’s plate tectonics and erosion have destroyed many clues to evolutionary history, obscuring the planet’s first billion years, including the time when life emerged.

“The moon is the cornerstone of our understanding because there is no plate tectonics on its surface. In fact, it is a kind of frozen record of our early solar system,” he said, adding that understanding the moon’s composition could not only advance our understanding of the past but also future exploration of the solar system.

While the stated focus of the Chang’e-6 mission is on these broader scientific questions, experts say analyzing the composition and physical properties of the samples could also help determine how the moon’s resources can be used for future lunar and space exploration.

“The mission (Chang’e-6) focuses on answering specific scientific questions, but the lunar soil collected during the mission can contribute to future resource utilization,” said Yuqi Qian, a planetary geologist at the University of Hong Kong.

Lunar soil could be used in 3D printing to make bricks for building research bases on the moon. Some scientists are already working on more economical and practical technologies to extract gases such as helium-3, oxygen and hydrogen from the soil. This could enable further exploration of the moon, he said.

After receiving the samples, Chinese scientists are expected to exchange data and conduct joint research with international partners before Beijing later releases the samples for access by international teams, CNSA officials said in statements.

International teams had to wait about three years before they could request access to the samples from the Chang’e-5 mission, but some of the first published research on these samples came from teams of Chinese and international scientists.

Chang’e-6 – the sixth of eight planned missions in the Chang’e series – is widely seen as an important step forward in China’s goal of putting astronauts on the moon in the coming years.

“Every step in the sample return mission process is exactly what you need to do to land humans on the moon and return them,” Head said. “It should be clear to no one that, on the one hand, this is a science mission, but the command and control aspects are exactly what you need for human exploration of the moon as well as things like returning samples to Mars.”

China’s ambitions to send astronauts to the moon come at a time when the United States is already aiming to launch a manned “Artemis” mission in 2026. It would be America’s first such attempt in over 50 years.

NASA chief Bill Nelson seemed to point to China’s pace as the driving force behind U.S. progress when he told lawmakers in April that the two countries were “in fact in a race.”

“My concern is that they get to the South Pole first and then say, ‘This is our territory, you stay out,’ because the South Pole of the Moon is an important part … We believe there is water there, and if there is water, there is rocket fuel,” Nelson said.

China is trying to allay concerns about its ambitions by reiterating its position that space exploration should “benefit all of humanity” and actively recruiting partner countries for its planned international lunar research station.

China and the United States are not alone in eyeing the national prestige, potential scientific benefits, access to resources and further space exploration that successful lunar missions could bring.

Last year, India landed its first spacecraft on the moon, while Russia’s first lunar mission in decades failed when its Luna 25 probe crashed on the lunar surface.

In January, Japan became the fifth country to land a spacecraft on the moon. However, the lunar module Moon Sniper had power problems due to an incorrect landing angle. The following month, IM-1, a mission funded by NASA and developed by the private Texas company Intuitive Machines, landed near the moon’s south pole.

China’s Chang’e-7 mission is scheduled to launch to the moon’s south pole region in 2026, while Chang’e-8 is scheduled to launch in 2028 to conduct tests on the use of lunar resources in preparation for the lunar research station, Chinese space authorities said earlier this year.

This story has been updated with further developments.