Chang'e 6

Key facts

Mission & specifications

Mission

Chang'e 6 achieved something no mission had ever done: it brought home pieces of the far side of the Moon. The hemisphere that permanently faces away from Earth is profoundly different from the near side — older, more heavily cratered, with a much thicker crust — and despite decades of exploration, no spacecraft had ever returned a sample from it. The far side had been touched on the surface only once, by China's own Chang'e 4. The central challenge is communication: a lander on the far side cannot see Earth, so it cannot talk to it directly. To solve this, China first placed a relay satellite, Queqiao-2, in an orbit from which it could see both the far side and Earth, bouncing signals between them. Launched in May 2024, Chang'e 6 set down in June in the vast South Pole-Aitken basin — one of the largest and oldest impact craters in the Solar System, where the giant impact that formed it may have excavated material from deep within the Moon. The lander scooped and drilled nearly two kilograms of rock and soil, sealed it into an ascent vehicle, and launched it back to lunar orbit, where it docked with a waiting craft for the journey home. The capsule parachuted into Inner Mongolia on 25 June 2024, carrying the first far-side samples ever collected. Early study of them is already revealing the far side's distinct volcanic history and helping explain why the Moon's two faces are so strikingly different. Chang'e 6 was a tour de force of robotic spaceflight — a sample return from the most inaccessible surface humans had ever reached for one.

1. 2024Launch toward the far sideLaunch

   Chang'e 6 sets out for the first-ever far-side sample return.

2. 2024Lands in the South Pole-Aitken basinLanding

   Sets down on the far side, talking to Earth via the Queqiao-2 relay satellite.

3. 2024Far-side samples sealedMilestone

   Drills and scoops ~2 kg of rock and soil, then launches it back to lunar orbit.

4. 2024Samples land on EarthMission end

   The first far-side samples ever collected parachute into Inner Mongolia.

Images

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