Just hours after NASA was forced canceled the launch in Florida on the Boeing Starliner for the second time, a Chinese spacecraft landed on the far side of the moon on Sunday to collect soil and rock samples that could provide insight into the differences between the less-explored region and the better-known nearby country.
The lander touched down at 6:23 a.m. Beijing time in a huge crater known as the South Pole-Aitken Basin, the China National Space Administration said.
The mission is the sixth in the Chang’e lunar exploration program, which is named after a Chinese moon goddess. It is the second designed to return samples, after Chang’e 5, which did so from the near side in 2020.
The moon program is part of a growing rivalry with the US – still the leader in space exploration – and others including Japan and India. China has put its own space station into orbit and regularly sends crews there.
China National Space Administration/Xinhua Agency via AP, file
The emerging global power aims to send a man to the moon before 2030, making it the second nation after the United States to do so. America plans to land astronauts on the moon again – for the first time in more than 50 years – although NASA pushed back the target date to 2026 earlier this year.
US efforts to use private sector rockets to launch spacecraft have been repeatedly delayed. A last-minute computer problem canceled the planned first launch of Boeing’s first astronaut flight on Saturday from Cape Canaveral. The Boeing Starliner, carrying two astronauts to the International Space Station, was less than four minutes from liftoff when a computer system triggered an automatic hold. NASA initially said it would attempt another launch on Sunday before delaying the potential launch until at least Wednesday.
Last month, problems with safety valve in Starliner’s Atlas 5 rocket, along a helium leak in the capsule’s propulsion module, underwent a launch attempt on May 6.
The first manned flight of the Starliner is Boeing’s answer to SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, an already operational, lower-cost spacecraft that has carried 50 astronauts, astronauts and civilians into orbit on 13 flights, 12 of them to the space station, since the initial pilot test flight in May 2020
Earlier on Saturday, a Japanese billionaire canceled his plan to orbit the moon amid uncertainty over SpaceX’s development of a mega rocket. NASA plans to use the rocket to send its astronauts to the moon.
In China’s current mission, the lander must use a mechanical arm and drill to collect up to 4.4 pounds of surface and subsurface material in about two days.
An apparatus atop the lander will then take the samples in a metal vacuum container back to another module orbiting the moon. The container will be transferred to a re-entry capsule that is due to return to Earth in the deserts of China’s Inner Mongolia region around June 25.
Missions to the far side of the Moon are more difficult because it does not face Earth, requiring a relay satellite to maintain communications. The terrain is also more rugged, with less flat landing areas.
