China’s robotic Chang’e 6 sample return mission to the far side of the moon is now in orbit around the moon and preparing for its landing attempt.
The multi-component spacecraft is expected to land in the United States in early June South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basina gigantic impact feature about 2,500 kilometers wide.
Change 6 is currently waiting for optimal lighting conditions in the area and exploring the best landing sites within or around the Apollo Basin, which is part of the larger SPA landscape.
Related: China’s Chang’e 6 probe to the far side of the moon aims to solve a major lunar mystery
A 53 day mission
Chang’e 6 will place a lander/ascender on the lunar surface and keep a spacecraft in orbit around the moon. the moon. Within 48 hours of landing, the lander will extend a robotic arm to scoop rocks and soil from the moon’s surface, and the drill will drill into the top of the moon.
These lunar collectibles are placed in the ascender before departure from the moon and docked with the orbiter/returner in lunar orbit.
The Chang’e 6 mission then begins its journey home. After about five days of flight, a return capsule will reenter Earth’s atmosphere and land in the Siziwang Banner region of Inner Mongolia, northern China.
The entire mission will last 53 days, starting May 3 launch to the return to Earth of the sample-containing capsule.
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Landing strip
As the largest and oldest impact structure on the Moon, the SPA Basin is among the highest priority locations for future lunar exploration and lunar sample returns.
One of the candidate landing areas for Chang’e 6 is the ‘cryptomare’ – a patch of volcanic deposits partially hidden by craters or other features – south of the Apollo Basin, called Region 1.
That area isn’t just on the landing zone agenda for Chang’e 6: A potential NASA moon mission, Endurance, is designed to cross the basin through its center and also return samples from the area.
Samples collected by these missions would provide critical ground truth data for assessing the early thermal history of the moon’s far side, and their comparison with samples from the moon’s near side collected by China’s Chang’e 5 mission and NASA is staffed Apollo efforts would also help unravel the causes of the hemispheric asymmetry of lunar mare deposits, scientists say.
You can learn about the SPA basin and the mysterious geology of the far side of the moon this papertitled “Lunar Farside South Pole-Aitken Basin Interior: Evidence for More Extensive Central Cryptomaria in the South Pole-Aitken Compositional Anomaly (SPACA).”
