Chang’e-7: A High-Precision Experiment to Probe the Very Far Side of the Moon and Establish a Human-Front for the Moon
The probe used its robotic arm and drilling tools to get samples of soil after landing on the far side of the Moon. It also carried payloads from the European Space Agency, France, and Italy for “scientific exploration.”
The feat is expected to help scientists better understand the unfamiliar terrain of the Moon’s far side and perhaps shed some light on the early history of the Moon and Earth. It’s also a significant milestone in the escalating global space race to establish a presence on the Moon.
The president of China called the achievement a “landmark” in the country’s efforts to become a space and technological power.
The South Pole–Aitken Basin is a massive impact crater that likely formed some 4.26 billion years ago. The far side of the Moon is marked by craters from old crashes. How these craters formed is an important question that will help us understand the history of the Moon.
“This also has implications for understanding the origins of life on Earth,” the nonprofit The Planetary Society wrote in a post about Chang’e 6 earlier this year, citing a theory that asteroids might have carried water and organic materials to Earth during an event known as the Late Heavy Bombardment. Recently, there has been more scrutiny on how ferocious that bombardment really was. Long-awaited samples from the far side of the Moon could help start to answer some of these questions.
China is now developing its Chang’e-7 and Chang’e-8 missions, which are more complex and are scheduled to launch in 2026 and 2028, respectively. They will conduct surveys and experiments near the lunar south pole to look for water ice. Water ice can be used to make oxygen and rocket fuels, and local supplies will be crucial for establishing a long-term human presence on the Moon.
“The samples are going to be different from all previous rocks collected by the US, Soviet Union and China,” which came from the Moon’s near side, says Yang Wei, a geochemist at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics in Beijing. “We have very high expectations for them,” Yang says.
The landing procedure began at 1:20 pm Beijing time on Tuesday. The capsule deviated from the atmosphere to reduce its speed, before it dived down at a rate of 10.8 kilometres a second. A parachute was used to help the decent. A recovery team located the capsule. Once they have processed the capsule on site, it will be transported to Beijing, where it will be opened and the samples removed for scientific analysis and storage, says CNSA.
Patrick Pinet, a lunar geologist at the Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology (IRAP) in Toulouse, France, watched the mission unfold in real time from a control room in Beijing. “I’ve seen an incredible technical efficiency and professional mastering of all these very complex steps along the way,” he says.
The ability of China to carry out complex missions at lunar distance is robust according to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The technologies to control a spacecraft and communicate with it, to manoeuvre in lunar orbit, land, take off and rendezvous “will be important to have well in control for a human lunar mission in the near future”, he says.
A group of Chinese scientists from universities and research establishments met in Beijing earlier this month to discuss the scientific questions they hope to answer by analyzing the Chang’e 6 samples. The problems they considered most important were voted on by participants. The top question to explore is why the Moon’s two faces are so different, followed by what the composition of deeper lunar structures is and when the SPA basin formed.
The moon has been negative ioned for the first time. Studying these particles will help scientists to understand the lunar surface environment and design robotic and crewed missions in the future. “A lot more work is needed before we could talk about the species and quantities of the ions,” says NILS project manager Neil Melville, who is based in The Hague, the Netherlands.
According to Pierre-yves Meslin, his team recorded 19 hours of good data during the surface operations. “We are now working on the calibration and analysis of the scientific data, but we can already tell that the performance of the instrument has been met,” he says. “The Chinese and French members of the DORN team had very successful teamwork, and we received great support from the China National Space Administration and the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center, among others. We really felt like we were part of the mission.
The Moon Base as an Instrument for the Lunar Programme in China, according to a Space-Policy Researcher at Arizona State University in Phoenix
According to the space-policy researcher at Arizona State University in Phoenix, the moon base is part of China’s larger lunar programme. China will establish the first permanent position on the Moon because of their ability to execute their space missions on time.