International payloads carried by Chang’e-6 land on moon’s far side

BEIJING: China’s Chang’e-6 lunar probe touched down on the far side of the moon on Sunday morning, and will collect samples from this rarely explored terrain.

Supported by the Queqiao-2 relay satellite, the lander-ascender combination of the Chang’e-6 probe touched down at the designated landing area in the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin. The combination also carried several international payloads including a detector from France, a lunar surface negative ion analyzer from the European Space Agency (ESA) and a laser angle reflector from Italy.

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As the first French-made instrument to land on the moon, the Detection of Outgassing RadoN (DORN) is dedicated to measuring the radioactive gas of radon on the moon’s surface. The lunar surface negative ion analyzer developed by the ESA/Sweden will be used to detect negative ions and study the interaction between plasma and the lunar surface. The laser retro-reflector developed by Italian scientists will be used for positioning and distance measurement in future lunar missions.

“The data obtained by Chang’e-6’s international payloads after their respective explorations will be shared by scientists from China and the partner countries. We will conduct joint research to achieve more innovative scientific results and discoveries. The related findings will also be publicly released. We will also announce the application for Chang’e-6 lunar samples at the scheduled time,” said Ge Ping, spokesman for the Chang’e-6 mission.

Ge also said that lunar exploration is a common cause for humanity.

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In addition to scientific instruments from European countries, the probe also carried a cube satellite from Pakistan known as ICUBE-Q, which separated from the Chang’e-6 orbiter on May 8 to carry out exploration activities, such as capturing images of the moon.

Launched on May 3, Chang’e-6 is expected to be the first probe in human history to collect samples from the moon’s mysterious far side and bring them back to Earth.