Just hours after NASA was forced to do so cancel the Florida launch from the Boeing Starliner for the second time, a Chinese spacecraft landed on the far side of the moon on Sunday to collect soil and rock samples that could provide insight into the differences between the less explored region and the better-known near side.
The landing module touched down at 6:23 a.m. Beijing time in a massive crater known as the South Pole-Aitken Basin, the China National Space Administration said.
The mission is the sixth in the Chang’e lunar exploration program, which is named after a Chinese moon goddess. It is the second designed to bring back monsters, after the Chang’e 5, which did so from close range in 2020.
The moon program is part of a growing rivalry with the US – still the leader in space exploration – and others including Japan and India. China has launched its own space station into orbit and regularly sends crews there.
China National Space Administration/Xinhua News Agency via AP, File
The emerging world power wants to put a man on the moon before 2030, which would make it the second country after the United States to do so. America plans to land astronauts on the moon again – for the first time in more than 50 years – although NASA pushed back the target date to 2026 earlier this year.
U.S. efforts to use private sector rockets to launch spacecraft have been repeatedly postponed. Last-minute computer problems prevented the planned maiden launch of Boeing’s first astronaut flight Saturday from Cape Canaveral. The Boeing Starliner, carrying two astronauts bound for the International Space Station, was less than four minutes away from takeoff when a computer system activated an automatic stop. NASA initially said it would attempt another launch on Sunday, before delaying the possible launch until at least Wednesday.
Last month, problems with a pressure relief valve in the Starliner’s Atlas 5 rocket, passing a helium leak in the capsule’s propulsion module, scrubbed a May 6 launch attempt.
The Starliner’s first piloted flight is Boeing’s answer to SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, an already operational, lower-cost spacecraft that has carried 50 astronauts, cosmonauts and civilians into orbit in 13 flights, including 12 to the space station, since a first pilot test flight in May 2020.
Earlier Saturday, a Japanese billionaire called off his plan to orbit the moon due to uncertainty over SpaceX’s development of a mega-rocket. NASA plans to use the rocket to send its astronauts to the moon.
In China’s current mission, the lander is to use a mechanical arm and a drill to collect up to 4.4 pounds of surface and subsurface material over about two days.
A riser on top of the lander then returns the samples in a metal vacuum container to another module orbiting the moon. The container will be transferred to a re-entry capsule that will return to Earth around June 25 in the deserts of China’s Inner Mongolia region.
Missions to the far side of the moon are more difficult because it is not pointed toward Earth, requiring a relay satellite to maintain communications. The terrain is also rougher, with fewer flat areas for landing.