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China launches lunar probe to grab samples of soil from Moon’s far side

The spacecraft will attempt to perform a soft landing on an area in the South Pole-Aitken basin

BEIJING, May 3. /TASS/. China successfully launched the Chang’e-6 spacecraft to collect samples of lunar soil from the far side of the Moon for the first time ever on Friday, China’s state media CCTV reported.

A Long March-5 rocket took off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in the province of Hainan in southern China at 12:27 p.m. Moscow time (10:27 a.m. GMT - TASS). The landing module is carrying a payload from France, Italy and the European Space Agency (ESA), while the waiting service module includes a cubesat for Pakistan.

The spacecraft will attempt to perform a soft landing on an area in the South Pole-Aitken basin. After its robotic arm grabs lunar material, the mission’s ascent vehicle will blast off from the Moon to dock with the waiting service module in lunar orbit. The re-entry module should safely deliver the samples through the atmosphere and to the ground in northern China. The odyssey is expected to last 53 days.

Chinese engineers have already recognized the launch of the history-making robotic Moon mission as successful. "According to monitoring data and calculations from the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center, the Chang’e-6 probe has accurately entered the target orbit as it unfolded its solar photon sail normally. I declare this launch mission a complete success," CCTV quoted the launch mission commander as saying.

The previous, unmanned Chang’e 5 mission was launched to the Moon from the Wenchang launch site on November 24, 2020. Twenty-three days later, it returned some 2 kg of lunar soil samples to Earth. Chinese experts analyzed the samples to obtain valuable data, which is being used, among other things, for a project to build a research base on Earth’s only natural satellite.

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