The returner of the Chang’e-6 probe touched down on Earth on Tuesday, bringing back the world’s first samples collected from the moon’s far side.
The return capsule landed precisely in the designated area in Siziwang Banner, north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and the missionis a complete success, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).
Chang’e-6 is one of the most complex and challenging missions in China’s space exploration efforts to date.
Consisting of an orbiter, a returner, a lander and an ascender, it waslaunched on May 3 this year, and has gone through various stages such as Earth-moon transfer, near-moon braking, lunar orbiting and separation ofthe lander-ascender combination and the orbiter-returner combination.
Supported by the Queqiao-2 relay satellite, the lander-ascendercombination landed at the designated landing area in the SouthPole-Aitken (SPA) Basin on the far side of the moon on June 2 andcarried out sampling work.—NNI
