According to Xinhua News Agency, China plans to launch its lunar probe, Chang’e 6, on the 3rd from the Wenchang Space Launch Site in southern Hainan province.
Chang’e is named after the moon goddess in Chinese mythology, and the same title is given to China’s lunar exploration project, which began in 2004.
The mission of Chang’e 6, which will be loaded onto the Long March-5 Y8 carrier, is to ascend to the Earth-moon transfer orbit, collect samples from the far side of the moon, and return to Earth. Xinhua described it as the first mission of its kind in human history.
Chinese space authorities announced they had completed the final rehearsal the previous day at the Wenchang Space Launch Site, Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center, Xi’an Satellite Monitoring Center, and the Yuan-wang class tracking ship of the People’s Liberation Army.
Although China started later than the U.S. and Russia, it has been considered the leading nation in lunar exploration since the 2010s.
China started its lunar exploration project in 2004 and successfully launched the unmanned spacecraft Chang’e 1 in 2007. In 2013, it accomplished landing Chang’e 3 on the near side of the moon.
Following that, Chang’e 4 was launched in December 2018 and made the first-ever landing on the far side of the moon, which is not visible from Earth, in January 2019.
With this, China became the first country in the world to land on both the near and far sides of the moon. In 2020, Chang’e 5 achieved to collect lunar soil samples and return to Earth.
Last month, the Chinese Academy of Sciences also released a high-resolution lunar geological information map based on the Chang’e project data at a scale of 1:2.5 million.