China launches Change-6 for mission to the moon

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Beijing (ANTARA) – Chinese mythology tells of the existence of a moon goddess named Chang’e who was worshiped by people at the Mid-Autumn Festival, aka “Moon Festival” every 15th and 8th month of the Chinese calendar.

The “Moon Festival” in modern times is celebrated by eating mooncakes, while in the past it was by worshiping the moon which appears in mid-autumn, where people prayed to the Goddess Chang’e so that the harvest would run smoothly and produce abundant crops.

The legend of Goddess Chang’e begins with a myth that once said there were 10 suns in the sky. However, because it was too hot and made things difficult for humans, a young man named Houyi decided to shoot 9 suns and only leave 1 sun on earth.

Houyi was then highly praised and became a hero. He also married a beautiful woman named Chang’e.

One day, a sky goddess gave Houyi a magic potion that could make him live immortal and fly to heaven. Unfortunately, the potion was only for one person, Houyi was reluctant to drink it alone because it would leave Chang’e behind.

Houyi then kept the magic potion in his house. However, one of his followers, Fengmeng, wanted to obtain the potion so when Houyi was not at home, he threatened Chang’e to give him the magic potion.

Chang’e had no other idea but to swallow the potion herself so she immediately flew and landed on the moon. Since then, Chang’e has lived on the moon because it is closest to the earth.

As soon as they heard that Chang’e had arrived on the moon, people decorated incense tables under the moonlight, praying for good luck and peace for Chang’e and that was the beginning of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

However, with the development of Chinese space technology, the existence of Chang’e on the moon is no longer a myth because since 2004 the Chinese government – in this case the Chinese National Space Agency (CNSA) – launched the “Chinese Lunar Exploration Program” (CLEP) or known as the Chang Program ‘e which marked the start of Chinese exploration of the moon. Black clouds hung around the installation of the Long March-5 Yao-8 rocket to carry the Chang’e-6 space probe at the Wenchang Space Launch Center, Hainan province on Wednesday (03/05) (ANTARA/Desca Lidya Natalia)

Misi Chang’e-6

Starting with the launch of Chang’e-1 on October 24 2007, it became momentum for China as the fifth country to launch its own lunar probe. Chang’e 1 orbits 200 kilometers above the moon to map 3D images, measure the depth of lunar soil and explore the Earth-moon environment for up to 16 months.

The Chang’e 2 mission was then sent on October 1 2010 to take pictures of the Iridium Sinus (Rainbow Bay) on the moon as a target landing location for the next mission.

The Chang’e 3 mission departed on December 2 2013 with the first lunar probe, Yutu (jade rabbit) and successfully landed on the moon on December 14 2013 to create a geological profile of the moon.

Furthermore, the Chang’e-4 mission was launched on December 8 2018 to the moon and successfully made a soft landing in the Von Karman crater.

The Chang’e 5 mission then launched on November 24, 2020 and returned on December 17, 2020 to bring soil and dust samples from the near side of the moon.

Only on May 3, 2024 at 17.27 local time, from the Wenchang Space Launch Site, Hainan Province, the Long March-5 Yao-8 carrier rocket flew the Chang’e-6 mission to the far side of the moon.

About 10 minutes before the launch, black clouds came and heavy rain fell so that hundreds of people who received special invitations and gathered in the courtyard of building 505 in the Wenchang Space Launch Site complex spread umbrellas and it was difficult to see clearly the rocket installation.

The Chinese people and especially those in Hainan Province enthusiastically welcomed the launch. Congestion even occurred around 5 kilometers to the launch site because many people parked their cars to see the launch of Chang’e 6 – even from a distance because they did not have an invitation to enter the Wenchang Space Launch Site complex. People gather around Building 505 at the Wenchang Space Launch Center ahead of the launch of the Chang’e-6 mission in Wenchang city, Hainan province on Wednesday (03/05) (ANTARA/Desca Lidya Natalia)

A few seconds later, while the heavy rain was still falling, a countdown sound was heard and at precisely 17.27, flames came out of the Long March-5 Yao-8 rocket through the rain and made a thrilling roar while creating a “fireball” show that shot into the sky.

The Long March-5 Yao-8 rocket itself is the latest generation of high-thrust carrier rocket. The diameter is 5 meters, the total length reaches 57 meters, the weight at takeoff is 870 tons, the thrust at takeoff is more than 1,000 tons and the thrust in earth orbit is up to 25 tons.

The rocket will carry the Chang’e-6 mission into Earth and Moon orbit, then separate itself at a distance of 380 thousand kilometers from Earth. Chang’e-6 was then targeted to land at a location called South Pole Aitken Basin, which is a crater with a diameter of about 2,400 kilometers on the far side of the moon. The crater is said to be the largest and oldest on the moon.

The Chang’e-6 mission is tasked with collecting 2 kilograms of rock samples from the far side of the moon, where humans have never taken any samples, in the hope of revealing the history of the solar system, volcanic activity on the far side of the moon and the geological evolution of the moon.

The Chang’e-6 mission consists of an orbiter, a lander, an ascender and a reentry module. Chang’e-6 is also equipped with a landing camera, panoramic camera, mineral spectrum analyzer, lunar soil structure detector and national flag display system.

Sample collection was carried out by drilling and surface extraction as well as taking shallow structures on the lunar surface, material components and mapping the lunar topography.

Because the landing site will be on the far side of the moon, it is not possible to communicate directly with ground stations on earth, so relay communication support is provided from the Queqiao-2 satellite.

The total time for the Chang’e-6 mission was 53 days with a sampling duration on the far side of the moon of “only” 14 hours due to limited radio communication time on the far side of the moon.

Communication with Chang’e-6 is also carried out via the Queqiao-2 relay satellite which orbits at a distance of 300 kilometers from the nearest point to the moon. The satellite not only has the ability to transmit data for lunar investigations, but also carries payloads such as advanced ultraviolet cameras and neutral atom capture instruments to carry out scientific exploration missions.

The main challenge for the Chang’e-6 mission lies in its ability to successfully take samples from the far side of the moon (the side that is not visible from the earth).

“It must be said that so far, humans have taken 10 samples from the moon but they came from the near side of the moon, so even though it is difficult, the Chang’e-6 project must be carried out because it can have a significant impact on the development of science,” said team member Chang ‘e-6 GE Ping from China’s Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center.

Chang’e-6 sampling will be carried out in an older section than sampling by the United States and the Soviet Union previously carried out in locations with a geological age of 3 billion years.

The geological age of the samples brought by Chang’e-5 in 2020 is around 2 billion years, while for the Chang’e-6 mission the samples are estimated to be 3 billion years old.

GE Ping also said China hopes to strengthen cooperation with international partners in the space sector because countries need to explore, develop and utilize outer space peacefully.

Space agency collaboration

The Chang’e-6 mission is also supported by instruments and experts from other countries so that it can reveal the history of the formation of the moon which is still a mystery to mankind.

The first external organization to collaborate on the Chang’e-6 mission was the European Space Agency (ESA) with its Negative Ions at the Lunar Surface (NILS) instrument.

NILS itself is intended to test negative ion modeling on the lunar surface.

“The moon does not have a magnetic field, when the solar wind hits the moon it scatters particles on the lunar surface, our theory is that there will be negative ions released because of the solar wind on the lunar surface,” said NILS Project Manager Neil Melville in Haiko, Hainan Province , China, on Friday (3/5). Smoke from combustion during the launch of the Chang’e-6 mission at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Wenchang City, Hainan Province on Wednesday (03/05) (ANTARA/Desca Lidya Natalia)
If there are negative ions on the surface of the moon, it means that it can measure oxygen, hydrogen, ratio, lifetime and determine the environmental character on the moon.

“And even if we don’t find the negative ions, it will still give us information about the lunar surface, plasma, ions, what types of materials are there,” said Neil.

Ultimately, if humans can go to the moon with more complex machines and want to live on the moon then understanding the lunar environment is very important.

“I think space exploration encourages us to both recognize that the earth is only one and humans are also one species that is one unit, now that we are continuing our journey which is still in the early stages of exploring the universe, we need to collaborate,” added Neil .

Another organization that is collaborating is the “Institut De Recherche en Astrophysique et Planetologie” (IRAP) from France with the “Detection of Outgassing RadoN” (DORN) instrument, which is an instrument for detecting rodon isotopes on the lunar surface.

“We have developed this instrument over the last four years as an instrument to measure a radioactive gas called radon which can be used to determine the conditions of the thin atmosphere surrounding the moon,” said DORN Project Head Pierre-Yves Meslin.

Another use of DORN is to find out how gas moves from the center of the moon to the poles because at the poles of the moon there is a kind of frozen ice whose history of formation is unknown, so radon gas is useful for knowing the character of the lunar surface and how particles migrate on the lunar surface as well as for understanding isotopic dust on the moon.

Meslin said the Chang’e-6 mission was the first collaboration between China and France to send instruments beyond Earth. He also admitted that he was impressed by China’s fast work in the space sector, especially lunar exploration.

“It’s very impressive to us that they were able to do that and actually it’s still a mystery to us how China was able to develop such an ambitious and successful program in such a short time without any failures, so yes, we’re impressed by this very rapid progress ,” said Meslin.

There is also collaboration with the Italian Nuclear Physics Agency (National Institute for Nuclear Physics or INFN) to provide a laser reflector during landing (Instrument for landing – Roving laser Retroreflector Investigations) as well as a small satellite from the Pakistan Space Agency called ICUBE-Q Cubesat which carries a camera dual optics for photographing the lunar surface.

Even though the space mission is complicated, China has made plans to continue its lunar exploration mission using the Chang’e-7 spacecraft to explore the south pole of the moon and look for water sources on the moon with plans to launch in 2026.

Meanwhile, the Chang’e-8 mission will be launched in 2028 and will continue the Chang’e-7 mission to build the basic mode of a research station at the south pole of the moon, including establishing various exploration instruments such as an orbiter, a lander, a rover ( rover), and mini-flying probe.

Seeing these developments, it seems that both Goddess Chang’e and Chang’e’s mission will continue to be welcomed and awaited by the people of China and the world.