Perfect success! Chang'e-6 achieves the world's first lunar backsampling return

2024-06-25

At 14:07 on June 25, 2024, the Chang'e-6 spacecraft accurately landed in the designated area of Siziwang Banner, Inner Mongolia, working normally, marking the successful completion of the lunar exploration project Chang'e-6 mission and achieving the world's first lunar backside sampling return. At around 13:20, the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center injected high-precision navigation parameters into the Chang'e-6 orbiter and spacecraft combination through ground measurement and control stations. Afterwards, the orbiter and the return vehicle unlocked and separated normally at a height of about 5000 kilometers above the sea level in the South Atlantic, and the orbiter completed its orbital evasion maneuver as planned. At around 13:41, the Chang'e-6 spacecraft entered the Earth's atmosphere for the first time over the Atlantic Ocean at a speed close to the second cosmic velocity (about 11.2 kilometers per second) at a height of about 120 kilometers from the ground, implementing its first aerodynamic deceleration. After descending to the predetermined altitude, the spacecraft jumps upwards out of the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean and begins to glide and descend upon reaching its highest point. Afterwards, the return vessel re-enters the atmosphere and implements secondary aerodynamic deceleration. When descending to an altitude of about 20 kilometers above the ground, the return device enters an open parachute position. At an altitude of about 10 kilometers, the lander opens the parachute, completes final deceleration and maintains stable posture, and then accurately lands smoothly in the designated area. The launch site and recovery system technicians responsible for searching and recycling tasks plan the action path based on the landing location information reported by the Beijing Center, conduct a return device search, timely discover targets, confirm the normal status of the return device, and carry out recycling work in an orderly manner. According to the plan, the recovered Chang'e-6 spacecraft will be transported by air to Beijing for cabin opening after completing necessary ground handling work, and the sample containers and cargo will be taken out. The National Space Administration will hold a handover ceremony at an appropriate time to officially hand over lunar samples to the ground application system, and carry out subsequent work related to sample storage, analysis, and research. The Chang'e-6 probe was launched from the Wenchang Space Launch Site in China on May 3 and entered the Earth Moon transfer orbit. The detector has undergone orbit correction and lunar braking, and successfully entered the lunar orbit for flight. Afterwards, the probe underwent separation of the lander and ascent combination, as well as the orbiter and return combination. With the support of the Magpie Bridge 2 relay satellite, the lander and ascent combination carried out a lunar orbit descent and power descent. On June 2, it accurately landed in the pre selected area of the South Pole Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon and conducted sampling work. On June 4th, the ascent ignited and took off, accurately entered orbit, and completed the rendezvous and docking with the orbiter and return assembly, as well as sample transfer on June 6th. Afterwards, it separated from the orbiter and return assembly as planned and landed on the moon under control. Afterwards, the combination of the orbiter and retriever underwent a 13 day wait around the moon. After completing 2 lunar to ground transfer events and 1 orbit correction, the retriever separated from the orbiter on June 25th and returned to Earth with lunar samples. After successfully completing the Chang'e-6 mission, the Queqiao 2 relay satellite will choose an opportunity to carry out scientific exploration missions. Its polar ultraviolet camera, array neutral atom imager, and Earth Moon Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) experimental system will collect scientific data from the moon and deep space. (Lai Xin She)

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