File picture of the lunar lander of the Chang’e-4 probe in a photo taken in 2019.
| Photo Credit: AP

China on May 3 launched a lunar probe mission to collect samples for the first time from the far side of the moon and bring them to Earth for scientific studies.

The Chang’e-6 mission is tasked with collecting and then returning samples from the moon’s far side to Earth — the first endeavour of its kind in the history of human lunar exploration, China National Space Administration (CNSA) said.

The lunar probe was carried by a Long March-5 Y8 rocket which blasted off from the Wenchang Space Launch Site on the coast of China’s southern island province of Hainan.

Chang’e 6 consists of four components: an orbiter, a lander, an ascender and a re-entry module, according to a report by the state-run China Daily.

After collecting dust and rocks on the moon, the ascender will transport the samples to the lunar orbiter for transfer to the re-entry module, which will carry them back to Earth.

The CNSA said earlier that the mission is poised to make breakthroughs in key technologies, such as automatic sample collection, take-off and ascent from the far side of the moon. Meanwhile, the probe will carry out scientific exploration of the landing zone.

The CNSA has announced that scientific instruments from France, Italy and the European Space Agency/Sweden will be on board the lander of the Chang’e-6 mission and a Pakistani payload on the orbiter. A major space power, China in the past successfully launched unmanned missions to the moon which included landing a rover. China has also sent a rover to Mars.

Earlier, China announced plans for a manned lunar landing by 2030.

India became the first country to land near the little-explored lunar south pole region last year when its Chandrayaan-3’s lander, carrying the Pragyaan rover successfully landed there.

Tiruchirappalli:

After the successful Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya L1 mission, India is now looking at human exploration in space. Chandrayaan-3 project director P Veeramuthuvel, while speaking on the Gaganyaan mission, said that a roadmap is there and the launch will be soon.

Speaking at an event, Mr Veeramuthuvel said, “Soft landing in itself is a technology. India is the fourth country to have that. We mastered that. Then only human exploration is possible. You know Gaganyaan program is coming up. It’s a human exploration program. We have the roadmap and we will have the launch soon.”

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has started preparations for unmanned flight tests as part of the Gaganyaan mission.

A post on the ISRO’s official handle on social media platform X read, “Mission Gaganyaan: ISRO to commence unmanned flight tests for the Gaganyaan mission. Preparations for the Flight Test Vehicle Abort Mission-1 (TV-D1), which demonstrates the performance of the Crew Escape System, are underway.”

According to ISRO, the success of this test flight will set the stage for the remaining qualification tests and unmanned missions, leading to the first Gaganyaan mission with Indian astronauts.

The agency in a release regarding the First Crew Module for the Gaganyaan test flight said that the first development flight Test Vehicle (TV-D1) is in the final stages of preparation.

While the rocket itself will be constructed elsewhere, all internal systems for Gaganyaan will be developed in Ahmedabad.

ISRO’s Ahmedabad facility will be responsible for building two critical systems for the Gaganyaan mission- the cabin systems and communication systems.

The cabin will house three seats for astronauts, along with a lighting system and two display screens to monitor various parameters inside the cabin.

Gaganyaan represents India’s first manned space mission, and it aims to send three astronauts into an orbit of 400 km above the Earth’s surface.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)