A Chinese uncrewed lunar spacecraft returned to the earth Tuesday with lunar rock samples, making China the first country to achieve the feat, according to the country’s state-owned broadcaster.
The Chang’e-6 lunar probe’s return capsule or returner landed at 2:07 p.m. Beijing Time (2:07 a.m. ET) in Siziwang Banner, north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, bearing the lunar samples, China Central Television (CCTV) reported. The return to the earth was livestreamed.
“Here I declare that China’s lunar exploration project Chang’e-6 [is] a complete success,” China National Space Administration (CNSA) Director Zhang Kejian said at a press conference, according to a video report shared by the outlet.
The orbiter-returner components of the lunar probe spent 13 days orbiting the moon, biding its time before its return to Earth, according to the video report. The pair, combined as one, completed two maneuvers and adjusted its orbit once to maintain its path into the earth’s orbit.
The return capsule then performed a controlled separation from the orbiter approximately 5,000 km above the South Atlantic as it descended, according to the outlet. “Attention please, Chang’e-6 returner has separated from orbiter,” an announcer on the ground declared, the video report showed. The rest of the technical crew greeted the announcement with applause.
The returner then made its initial entry into the Earth’s atmosphere at about 1:41 p.m. Beijing Time at an altitude of about 120 km (about 74.5 miles) and a speed of nearly 11.2 km (nearly 7 miles) per second, according to the outlet. The returner reportedly slowed down, skipped out of the atmosphere, and then, gliding downwards, reentered the atmosphere and slowed down as it descended.
A parachute opened some 10-odd km (about 6.2 miles) above the ground, the outlet reported. “Brake parachute has been separated from the Chang’e-6 returner, and the main parachute has been opened,” ran another announcement, according to the video report.
The returner could then be seen parachuting down and landing on an open field. Helicopters arrived, and Chinese officials cordoned off the area and planted a flag. (RELATED: ‘China Lands Probe On Far Side Of Moon For Second Time As Space Competition With US Grows)
Chinese officials will airlift the capsule to Beijing, where a team of scientists will collect the lunar samples from it and then study and store them, the CNSA reportedly said.
Chang’e-6 — comprising an orbiter, a returner, a lander, and an ascender, and supported by a relay satellite — took off from the Earth on May 3. Its lander-ascender combination landed as planned in the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin on the moon’s far side June 2 and collected the lunar samples. The ascender then entered lunar orbit bearing the samples, which it transferred to the orbiter-returner before landing again on the moon to avoid becoming space junk, CCTV reported.
Chang’e-6’s landing on the far side of the moon — popularly called the dark side of the moon — also made China the first country to successfully land a spacecraft on that part of the moon twice. China was the first country to ever land a spacecraft on that part of the moon, with its Chang’e-4 in 2019.
However, NASA astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders were the first humans to glimpse the moon’s far side during the Apollo 8 lunar mission in December 1968.
