China on Sunday, June 2 claimed that its space mission Chang’e 6 has made a historic landing on the ‘unexplored’ far side of the Moon.
According to BBC, The China National Space (CNSA) informed that the Chang’e 6 landed successfully in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on Sunday at 06:23 Beijing time (22:23 GMT Saturday).
It was a risky landing as it became difficult to communicate with the spacecraft when it reached the far side of the Moon.
After launching from Wenchang Space Launch Center on May 3, the spacecraft had been orbiting the Moon for landing.
CNSA believed that the lander should spend more than three days in collecting samples from the surface in an operation that would involve ‘many engineering innovations, high risks and great difficulty.’
Professor John Pernet-Fisher, who specializes in lunar geology at the University of Manchester, explained, “Everyone is very excited that we might get a look at these rocks no one has ever seen before… It would help us answer those really big questions, like how are planets formed, why do crusts form, what is the origin of water in the solar system?"
As per CNSA, the operation was supported by the Queqiao-2 relay satellite.
China has launched its mission to the Moon with an aim to collect the world’s first rock and soil sample from the dark lunar hemisphere.
Additinally, Chang’e 6 is the sixth mission in the Chang’e moon exploration program of the country, which is named after a Chinese moon goddess.
China is the only country which has landed on the far side before, as it landed its Chang’e 4 in 2019.
