Chang'e 6

• 1. Introduction

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  Chang'e 6 left a hole in the lunar soil shaped like a single Chinese character. Engineers recognized it as 中, zhong, the first character in Zhongguo, China's own name for itself. Photos of the marking spread quickly across Weibo. Chang'e 6 was the sixth robotic mission in the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. It was also the second built to bring lunar material back to Earth. Like its predecessors, the spacecraft takes its name from Chang'e, the Chinese moon goddess. Every earlier sample-return effort had scooped material from the Moon's near side, the half that always faces Earth. Chang'e 6 became the first mission to reach the far side and carry a piece of it home. What made that hidden half of the Moon worth the risk? And what did four separate spacecraft modules have to do to pull it off?

• 2. A Four-Phase Program

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  In 2007, Chang'e 1 became the first spacecraft in the program to simply reach lunar orbit. Chang'e 2 repeated that same goal in 2010. Chang'e 3 landed and roved on the Moon in 2013, achieving the program's second phase. Chang'e 4 repeated that landing feat in 2019. The third phase, returning lunar samples to Earth, was completed first by Chang'e 5 in 2020. Chang'e 6 continued that same phase in 2024. A planned fourth phase calls for a robotic research station near the Moon's south pole. The program's stated aim is to support crewed lunar landings sometime in the 2030s, and possibly build a crewed outpost near the south pole.

• 3. Landing Zone Science

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  Chang'e 5 had returned 1.731 kilograms of material from the northern hemisphere of the Moon's near side in 2020. Chang'e 6 targeted the opposite hemisphere instead, touching down in a relatively flat area in the southern part of the Apollo crater. That crater sits inside the much larger South Pole-Aitken basin, one of the largest impact structures on the Moon. Scientists hoped the collected material might include lunar mantle rock thrown up by the impact that originally carved out the basin. Such material could reveal differences between the Moon's near and far sides. It might also offer clues about the origins of the Moon and the Solar System itself. Whether the returned soil actually held any of that mantle material would only be confirmed once laboratories examined it directly.

• 4. Four Modules, One Machine

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  Chang'e 6 was built as a copy of, and a backup for, its predecessor Chang'e 5. The mission's estimated launch mass was 8200 kilograms, with the lander alone projected at 3200 kilograms. The ascent vehicle added about 700 kilograms more. Four modules made up the spacecraft. The Lander carried a drill and a scooping device, with the Ascender mounted on top of it. Its drill reached about two meters below the surface to gather subsurface material. The Ascender then carried out a fully autonomous rendezvous and docking with the Orbiter in lunar orbit. Once the sample container had been robotically transferred, the Orbiter left lunar orbit and spent about four and a half days flying back toward Earth. It released the Returner just before arrival. The Returner was designed to perform a skip reentry, bouncing once off the atmosphere before its final descent. Whether that bounce would go as planned remained to be proven once the capsule actually faced Earth's atmosphere.

• 5. International Instruments

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  In October 2018, CNSA invited international partners to propose an additional science payload weighing up to 10 kilograms. By November 2022, the agency had settled on four international partners for the mission. A French instrument called DORN, short for Detection of Outgassing Radon, flew on the Lander. It studied how lunar dust and other volatiles move between the regolith and the thin lunar exosphere, including any water cycle. An Italian instrument, INRRI, carried a retroreflector aboard the Lander. It precisely measured distance between the lander and orbiting spacecraft, the same technique used on the Schiaparelli and InSight missions. A Swedish instrument, NILS, detected and measured negative ions reflected off the lunar surface. ICUBE-Q, a Pakistani CubeSat riding on the Orbiter, was developed by the Institute of Space Technology with Shanghai Jiao Tong University. It carried two optical cameras to image the lunar surface and to gather lunar magnetic field data. None of these four instruments were designed to come home; each kept working from orbit or the surface after the samples departed.

• 6. The Golden Toad

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  Chang'e 6 carried a roughly 5 kilogram mini-rover named Jinchan, Chinese for Golden Toad, wrapped in gold sheeting for insulation. Its developer, CASC, described it as an autonomous intelligent mini-robot, powered by its own micro solar panels. Jinchan was built to study the composition of the lunar surface and to search for water ice using an imaging infrared spectrometer. Its other job was photographing the Chang'e 6 lander itself, so it carried cameras on both sides in case one failed. After sample collection finished, CASC described the moment this way: "the mini rover autonomously detached from the lander, moved to a suitable position, selected an ideal angle for the photograph and then captured the image." That photograph captured the lander just before the ascender mounted on top of it prepared to leave the surface for lunar orbit.

• 7. Descent to the Far Side

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  A Long March 5 rocket lifted Chang'e 6 off the pad at Wenchang Space Launch Site on Hainan Island. Liftoff came at 09:27 UTC on the 3rd of May 2024. Five days later, on the 8th of May, the spacecraft entered a 12-hour orbit around the Moon at 02:12 UTC. On the 30th of May, the lander, ascender, and rover separated from the orbiter and returner ahead of landing. On the 1st of June, at 22:06 UTC, the lander began its descent from an altitude of 200 kilometers, about 124 miles. The Queqiao-2 relay satellite supported the descent throughout. An autonomous obstacle-avoidance system, a visible light camera, and a laser 3D scanner helped it pick a safe spot amid the far side's uneven terrain. At 22:23 UTC, the engines cut off for the final approach, and a cushioning system absorbed the craft's freefall touchdown. Using its scoop and drill, the lander gathered 1935.3 grams of lunar material, a mix of surface soil, rock, and subsurface samples. That gathered material would not sit on the surface for long: the ascender atop the lander was due to leave within two days.

• 8. The Journey Home

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  At 23:38 UTC on the 3rd of June 2024, the Chang'e 6 ascender lifted off from atop the lander. It was the first-ever launch from the Moon's far side. Three days later, on the 6th of June, at 06:48 UTC, the ascender docked with the orbiter in lunar orbit. By 07:24 UTC that same day, the sample container had been transferred into the returner. On the 21st of June, the service module likely fired its engines to begin the trip back toward Earth. CNSA gave no public update at the time, though amateur optical and radio observers reported a probable engine burn. On the 25th of June 2024, a roughly 300 kilogram reentry module separated from the service module. It skipped once off the atmosphere over the Atlantic Ocean before its final descent. The capsule landed by parachute at 06:07 UTC in Siziwang Banner, Inner Mongolia, and helicopter search teams reached it within minutes. The service module itself likely fired its engine again afterward, this time to avoid impacting Earth. The full round trip, from launch to splashdown, lasted about 53 days. Chinese scientists would study the samples together with international researchers. After Chang'e 5's 2020 return, outside partners had waited roughly three years for direct access. On the 9th of September 2024, the emptied orbiter was captured by the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point, beginning an extended mission. In September 2025, more than a year after splashdown, the International Astronautical Federation gave the Chang'e 6 team its World Space Award.