International Payloads on China's Chang'e-6 Science Mission to Moon's Far Side

International Payloads on China's Chang'e-6 Science Mission to Moon's Far Side

China's Chang'e-6 science mission that launched on May 3, 2024, aims to retrieve samples from the far side, south pole region of the Moon for the first time in human history. It is also taking international payloads along. Scientists from all over the world gathered in China's southern Hainan island province as the mission began. The Chang'e-6 mission features scientific payloads from France, Italy, Sweden, and Pakistan. The international scientific payloads carried by the Chang'e-6 mission include the French radon gas detector (CNES), the European Space Agency/Swedish ion analyzer, and the Italian laser corner reflector (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana), as well as the Pakistani ICUBE-Q cube satellite. The mission will last about 53 days. 

Chang'e-6's pre-selected landing area is located in the southern part of the Apollo basin in the SPA basin (43°±2° south latitude, 154°±4° west longitude). The South Pole–Aitken basin is a large impact crater on the far side of the Moon. At roughly 2,500 km (1,600 mi) in diameter and between 6.2 and 8.2 km (3.9–5.1 mi) deep, it is the largest, oldest, and deepest basin recognized on the Moon.

In 2020, Chang'e 5 was the first lunar sample-return mission since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976. The mission made China the third country to return samples from the Moon after the United States and the Soviet Union.

Video Credit: China Global Television Network (CGTN)

Duration: 3 minutes

Release Date: May 4, 2024

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