China’s Chang’e 6 Mission achieved another historic milestone, collecting samples for the first time remotely from the lunar surface. Now these lunar treasures are headed back to Earth.
Thursday, June 6, 2:48 p.m. Beijing time (2:48 a.m. ET; 0648 GMT), the two Chang’e 6 mission spacecraft successfully aligned and stabilized in lunar orbit. The ascendant with the lunar sample container safely moved the samples into orbit by 3:24 p.m. Beijing time (3:24 pm ET; 0724 GMT). This delicate maneuver marks the second time a China National Space Agency (CNSA) spacecraft has successfully converged around the moon and docked, after the Chang’e-5 mission
The Chang’e 6 landing site was an unexplored Apollo Basin crater lying within the massive South Pole Aitken Basin on the far side of the Moon. It became only the second mission to achieve a soft landing on this difficult terrain. Previously, CNSA’s Chang’e 4 robot lander and lunar rover achieved the feat, making China the only country to land softly on the lunar surface
Live footage of the Chang’e 6 docking process was shared on CNSA’s Weibo account and on the CNSA Watcher X feed. The next step in the mission is for the returner module to carry the samples back to Earth. The entire flight will last about 53 days and the samples are expected to eventually land inside China in the Mongolia Autonomous Region.
