China is scheduled to launch an uncrewed lunar mission Friday that aims to bring back samples from the far side of the moon for the first time, in a potentially major step forward for the country’s ambitious space program.

The Chang’e-6 probe – China’s most complex robotic lunar mission to date – marks a key milestone in the country’s push to become a dominant space power with plans to land astronauts on the moon by 2030 and build a research base on its south pole.

The expected launch of the probe on a Long March-5 rocket from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in south China’s Hainan island comes as a growing number of countries, including the United States, eye the strategic and scientific benefits of expanded lunar exploration in an increasingly competitive field.

China’s planned 53-day mission would see the Chang’e-6 lander touch down in a gaping crater on the moon’s far side, which never faces Earth. China became the first and only country to land on the moon’s far side during its 2019 Chang’e-4 mission.

Any far-side samples retrieved by the Chang’e-6 lander could help scientists peer back into the evolution of the moon and the solar system itself – and provide important data to advance China’s lunar ambitions.

“The Chang’e-6 aims to achieve breakthroughs in the design and control technology of the moon’s retrograde orbit, intelligent sampling, take-off and ascent technologies, and automatic sample-return on the far side of the moon,” Ge Ping, deputy director of the China National Space Administration’s Center of Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering said last week from the launch site.

Ambitious mission
The Chang’e-6 probe will be a key test for China’s space capabilities in its effort to realize leader Xi Jinping’s “eternal dream” of building the country into a space power.

China has made rapid space advancements in recent years, in a field traditionally led by the United States and Russia.

With the Chang’e program, launched in 2007 and named for the moon goddess of Chinese mythology, China in 2013 became the first country to achieve a robotic lunar landing in nearly four decades. In 2022, China completed its own orbital space station, the Tiangong.

The technically complex Chang’e-6 mission builds on both the Chang’e-4’s 2019 record of landing on the far side of the moon, and Chang’e-5’s 2020 success returning to Earth with near-side moon samples.

Source: CNN