Post #2919892

@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online @AndrewJonesSpace@universeodon.com Once on the moon, the probe will spend two days digging up 2 kilogrammes (4.4 lb) of samples before returning to Earth, where it is expected to land in Inner Mongolia. The window for the probe to collect samples on the far side is 14 hours, compared to 21 hours for the near side. The samples brought back by Chang'e-5 allowed Chinese scientists to uncover new details about the moon, including more accurately dating the timespan of volcanic activity on the moon, as well as a new mineral. Ge said the scientific value of Chang'e-6 lay in the geological age of the South Pole-Aitken Basin, which his team estimated was about 4 billion years, much older than the samples previously brought back by the Soviet Union and the United States, which were about 3 billion years old, as well as the 2-billion-year-old samples from Chang'e-5. LUNAR BASE Besides uncovering new information about the celestial body closest to Earth, Chang'e-6 is part of a long-term project to build a permanent research station on the moon: the China and Russia-led International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). The construction of such a station would provide an outpost for China and its partners to pursue deep space exploration. "We know that the moon may have resources that could become useful in the future, so the European Space Agency, NASA, the Chinese agency and others around the world are going to the moon," said James Carpenter, head of the ESA's lunar science office. "Part of the rationale is to understand those resources," Carpenter said. Wu Weiren, chief designer of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Project, speaking at the 2024 China Space Conference last month, said a "basic model" of the ILRS would be built by 2035.