International Scientists Collect Valuable Data | China Chang'e 6 Moon Mission

International Scientists Collect Valuable Data | China Chang'e 6 Moon Mission

International scientists that contributed to China's Chang'e-6 science mission to explore the far side south polar region of the Moon have praised the probe's success in retrieving valuable data. The Chang'e-6 mission features scientific payloads from France, Italy, Sweden, and Pakistan. 

The Chang'e-6 lunar probe was launched on May 3, 2024, and carried four international payloads. Its lander-ascender combination touched down at the designated landing area in the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin on Sunday, June 2, 2024.

The SPA basin (43°±2° south latitude, 154°±4° west longitude) is a large impact crater on the far side of the Moon. At roughly 2,500 km (1,600 mi) in diameter and between 6.2 and 8.2 km (3.9–5.1 mi) deep, it is the largest, oldest, and deepest basin recognized on the Moon.

The international payloads include the French-developed Detection of Outgassing RadoN (DORN) and the cube satellite, ICUBE-Q, developed by Pakistan's Institute of Space Technology and China's Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The satellite has successfully photographed the Moon from orbit.

A laser retro-reflector installed on the top of the lander was developed by Italy's National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN). Scientists of the institute expressed gratification in seeing their work reach the lunar surface.

"We are very proud that the laser retro-reflector that we designed and developed successfully landed on the moon aboard Chang'e-6 probe, the first of its kind ever to reach the far side of the Moon where it will serve as the only position marking point for distance measurement," said Luciana Filomena, laboratory researcher at the INFN.

Chang'e-6 was also installed with the Negative Ions on the Lunar Surface (NILS) instrument, developed by the European Space Agency (ESA)/Sweden.

"We got very good data and we only needed one hour of data on the surface, but we managed more than three times this. So our scientists are very happy. But already we see that we did detect negative ions. We don't know yet the quantity and the type and things like this, that needs a lot more analysis, but we already know it's really a great success," said Neil Melville-Kenney, NILS technical officer for the European Space Agency (ESA).

"It's actually the first ESA payload on the Moon at all, and it's the first lunar cooperation between ESA and China. So it's really quite a big event. It's really nice to be part of it," he said.

The ascender of China's Chang'e-6 probe lifted off from the lunar surface on Tuesday morning, June 4, 2024, carrying samples collected from the Moon's far side, an unprecedented feat in human lunar exploration history.

In 2020, Chang'e-5 was the first lunar sample-return mission since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976. The mission made China the third country to return samples from the Moon after the United States and the Soviet Union.

Video Credit: China Central Television (CCTV) Video News Agency

Duration: 2 minutes

Release Date: June 7, 2024

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