China launches spacecraft to compete with US at Lunar South Pole

NEW DELHI: China on Friday launched its Chang'e-6 lunar probe to the far side of the moon on a Long March-5 YB rocket from the Wenchang launch center located on the island province of Hainan.
The Chang'e-6 mission is tasked with collecting and then returning samples from the moon's far side to Earth -- the first endeavour of its kind in the history of human lunar exploration, China National Space Administration (CNSA) said.
The launch is seen as China's bid to strengthen its position in race against US to establish long term presence on the lunar surface.
On Friday afternoon, a Long March-5 rocket blasted off from the Wenchang Space Launch Site in Hainan, carrying the Chang’e-6 probe. This unmanned spacecraft is tasked with landing within the South Pole-Aitken Basin, a region of immense scientific interest due to its potential reservoirs of water ice, crucial for sustaining future human activities on the moon.
Meanwhile, NASA is also planning to reach the region in its attempt to send US astronauts to the moon in 2026, and is working with other private players such as Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
NASA administrator Bill Nelson on April 30 said that the US is worried that China may attempt to prevent others from accessing resources from this region. “We think that there is water there, and if there’s water, then there’s rocket fuel. And that’s one reason we’re going to the south pole of the moon,” said Nelson.
Earlier, China announced plans for a manned lunar landing by 2030.
India became the first country to land near the little-explored lunar south pole region last year when its Chandrayaan-3's lander, carrying the Pragyaan rover successfully landed there.
"Collecting and returning samples from the far side of the moon is an unprecedented feat. Now we know very little about the moon's far side. If the Chang'e-6 mission can achieve its goal, it will provide scientists with the first direct evidence to understand the environment and material composition of the far side of the moon, which is of great significance," said Wu Weiren, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chief designer of China's lunar exploration programme.
After the spacecraft reaches the moon, it will make a soft landing on the far side. Within 48 hours after landing, a robotic arm will be extended to scoop rocks and soil from the lunar surface, and a drill will bore into the ground. Scientific detection work will be carried out simultaneously.
After the samples are sealed in a container, the ascender will take off from the moon and dock with the orbiter in lunar orbit. The returner will then carry the samples back to Earth, landing in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The entire flight is expected to last about 53 days, the CNSA is quoted as saying by the state-run Xinhua news agency.
Remote-sensing images show the moon's two sides are very different. The near side is relatively flat, while the far side is thickly dotted with impact craters of different sizes and has much fewer lunar mares than the near side. Scientists infer that the lunar crust on the far side is much thicker than that on the near side. But why that is so remains a mystery.
Although the Chang'e-4 mission achieved the world's first soft landing on the far side of the moon in 2019, Chang'e-6 still faces significant risks as the rugged terrain of the moon's far side poses great challenges for its landing, space experts say.
(With inputs from agencies)