{"id":4333,"date":"2024-05-03T17:47:03","date_gmt":"2024-05-03T17:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/historic-journey-from-change-6-lifts-off\/"},"modified":"2024-05-03T17:47:03","modified_gmt":"2024-05-03T17:47:03","slug":"historic-journey-from-change-6-lifts-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/historic-journey-from-change-6-lifts-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic journey from Chang’e 6 lifts off"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A Long March 5 rocket, carrying the Chang’e 6 spacecraft, blasts off from its launchpad at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in South China’s Hainan province, May 3, 2024. [Photo\/Xinhua]<\/span> <\/p>\n

The Chang’e 6, the world’s first attempt to retrieve substances from the moon’s far side, embarked on its historic journey on Friday afternoon from China’s southernmost province of Hainan.<\/p>\n

Carrying the 8.35-metric-ton Chang’e 6, a Long March 5 heavy-lift carrier rocket, the biggest and mightiest space vehicle in China, lifted its 20-story-tall, 870-ton body and soared skyward with dazzling silver flame at 5:27 pm from its launch pad, leaving hundreds of thousands of spectators at and around the coastal Wenchang Space Launch Center in awe and excitement as the gigantic booster thundered up.<\/p>\n

The liftoff marked the beginning of the country’s second lunar sample-return expedition, after the success of Chang’e 5 in the winter of 2020.<\/p>\n

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People wait to watch the launch of the Chang’e 6 lunar probe in South China’s Hainan province, May 3, 2024. [Photo\/Xinhua]<\/span> <\/p>\n

However, the unfolding mission will be much more difficult, challenging and riveting than the Chang’e 5 that landed on the lunar near side, and will definitely be recorded, no matter if it ends up a great success or unfortunate failure, as a symbol of audacious pioneering in the history of humankind’s exploration of the final frontier.<\/p>\n

Before it, humankind had fulfilled 10 lunar sample-return missions, but all of the samples were collected from the near side on the moon.<\/p>\n

As one of China’s, and also the world’s, most significant space adventures this year, major steps in the Chang’e 6 mission have hit headlines on media around the globe and have attracted huge attention from the Chinese people.<\/p>\n

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A Long March 5 rocket, carrying the Chang’e 6 spacecraft, blasts off from its launchpad at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in South China’s Hainan province, May 3, 2024. [Photo\/Xinhua]<\/span> <\/p>\n

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Local tourism authority in Wenchang has estimated that there would be at least 200,000 travelers flocking to Longlou, a township in the city that is home to the launch complex, on Friday to witness the launching moment of the daring lunar expedition.<\/p>\n

According to the China National Space Administration, the Long March 5 rocket successfully placed the robotic lunar probe into an Earth-moon transfer trajectory, the gateway for our celestial neighbor.<\/p>\n

Within the next several days, Chang’e 6 is programmed to fly along its moon-ward trajectory and make some correction operations before conducting a key braking maneuver to avoid accidentally flying past the moon. After that, the spacecraft will be captured by the moon’s gravity and move into a lunar orbit.<\/p>\n

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This photo taken on April 27, 2024 shows the combination of the Chang’e 6 lunar probe and the Long March 5 Y8 carrier rocket being transferred vertically to the launching area at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in South China’s Hainan province. [Photo\/Xinhua]<\/span>
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Like its predecessor Chang’e 5, the Chang’e 6 spacecraft was designed and built by the China Academy of Space Technology in Beijing, a subsidiary of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, and also consists of four components \u2013 an orbiter, a lander, an ascender and a re-entry capsule.<\/p>\n

Its operational process will basically mimic that of the Chang’e 5. After the probe reaches lunar orbit, the probe’s components will separate into two parts, with the orbiter and re-entry capsule remaining in orbit while the lander and ascender approach the lunar surface.<\/p>\n

When everything is ready, the lander\/ascender combination will make a soft landing in the South Pole-Aitken Basin \u2013 a gigantic crater on the far side and also the largest, oldest and deepest basin recognized on the moon \u2013 and then start using a drill and a mechanical arm to gather surface and underground samples.<\/p>\n

If everything proceeds smoothly, up to 2 kilograms of stones and soil will be collected and packed in a vacuumed metal container inside the ascender.<\/p>\n

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A Long March 5 rocket, carrying the Chang’e 6 spacecraft, blasts off from its launchpad at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in South China’s Hainan province, May 3, 2024. [Photo by Zhang Mao\/For chinadaily.com.cn]<\/span> <\/p>\n


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A Long March 5 rocket, carrying the Chang’e 6 spacecraft, blasts off from its launchpad at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in South China’s Hainan province, May 3, 2024. [Photo by Yuan Chen\/For chinadaily.com.cn]<\/span>
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A Long March 5 rocket, carrying the Chang’e 6 spacecraft, blasts off from its launchpad at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in South China’s Hainan province, May 3, 2024. [Photo\/Xinhua] The Chang’e 6, the world’s first attempt to retrieve substances from the moon’s far side, embarked on its historic journey on Friday afternoon from China’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4333"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}