Tag: Chang’e 6
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China prepares to launch uncrewed Shenzhou as maiden launches slip for commercial launch providers
China is preparing to launch an uncrewed Shenzhou spacecraft as its astronauts shuffle missions following damage to the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft, while the Tiangong station prepares to greet its first international visitor in 2026. Meanwhile, commercial launch providers continue to make progress toward maiden launches, though a number have slipped into early next year. Furthermore, a…
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China Roundup: Tianlong-3 static fire anomaly, Chang’e 6 sample return, and next-generation rockets
Throughout the last few weeks, several events in Chinese spaceflight have created international headlines. After launching a Chang Zheng 2C rocket that would later fall onto an inhabited village, a Tianlong-3 rocket was unexpectedly released during a static fire test and would crash in an area close to the launch site. However, not all of…
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China Retrieves Nearly Two Kilograms of Lunar Samples from Moon’s Far Side
China’s Chang’e-6 reentry capsule successfully landed back on Earth on June 25, concluding a 53-day mission that retrieved 1,935.3 grams of lunar samples from the moon’s far side. The capsule, recovered as planned in Inner Mongolia’s grasslands of Siziwang Banner, was airlifted to Beijing and opened on June 26 to retrieve the sample canister, the…
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China Roundup: Chang’e 6 lands on the Moon, and record-breaking EVA
China’s Chang’e 6 landed on and sampled the far side of the Moon while the Shenzhou-18 crew performed a record-breaking spacewalk at the Tiangong Space Station. Additionally, 10 more rockets were launched from the country in the last few weeks. Chang’e 6 lands on the far side of the Moon China’s sixth uncrewed lunar exploration…
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News from the Press Site: New SpaceX spacesuits and China’s Chang’e 6 reaches orbit around the Moon
In this week’s edition of News from the Press Site, Spaceflight Now’s Will Robinson-Smith is joined by Jeff Foust, senior writer at Space News, and Bill Harwood, space consultant for CBS News. The panel discusses the upcoming valve work being done to ready ULA’s Atlas V rocket for the Starliner Crew Flight Test, China’s Chang’e…
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NASA hasn’t landed on the Moon in decades—China just sent its third in six years
China is going back to the Moon for more samples. On Friday the country launched its largest rocket, the Long March 5, carrying an orbiter, lander, ascent vehicle, and a return spacecraft. The combined mass of the Chang’e-6 spacecraft is about 8 metric tons, and it will attempt to return rocks and soil from the…
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Launch Roundup: China returns to the moon, SpaceX keeps up high launch cadence
This week, China returns to the Moon with the Chang’e-6 mission, making the first-ever attempt to collect samples from a site on the far side, near the lunar South Pole. SpaceX keeps up its high cadence with the launch of the long-delayed WorldView Legion satellites from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at the Vandenberg Space…
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China Roundup: Chinese Moon plans, commercial company updates, and Wenchang commercial pad
China provided several updates to its lunar exploration plans, while private companies like LandSpace and Space Pioneer are also getting closer to milestones. Meanwhile, the commercial complex in Wenchang is getting ready to host private Chinese rockets. China details lunar exploration further In a recent presentation, China detailed its lunar exploration plan for the near…
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Rocket launch marks big step in building China’s lunar infrastructure
The next phase of China’s Moon program began with the launch of a new data relay satellite Monday to link lunar landers and rovers on the far side of the Moon with ground controllers back on Earth. This launch sent China’s Queqiao-2 relay spacecraft toward the Moon, where it will enter an elliptical orbit and…
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China developing mission to return samples from far side of the moon
Illustration of the far side of the moon, with Earth in the background. Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio If China’s lunar exploration program goes according to plan, scientists could send a robotic lander to pick up samples from the far side of the moon and return them to Earth by the early 2020s, a top…