The new colonial movement: China today successfully launched its Chang’e-6 sample return mission to the far side of the Moon, its Long March 5 rocket lifting off from its coastal Wenchang spaceport. Unlike the Long March 5B, whose core stage reaches an unstable orbit and later crashes uncontrolled somewhere on Earth, the core stage of Long March 5 does not, and thus returns to Earth immediately, over the ocean.
The graphic from the right, released by China’s state-run press, shows the landing zone in red on the far side. The target is the southern rim area of Apollo Crater, marked by the uneven white outline. Apollo sits inside the South Aitken Basin, one of the Moon’s largest impact basins, 1,600 miles across, and roughly indicated by the black circle. The circle to the left of Apollo indicates Van Karman crater, where Chang’e-4 landed in 2019 with the Yutu-2 rover, both still operating.
The mission includes a lunar orbiter, a lander, an ascent vehicle, and an Earth sample return capsule. If all goes as planned, the samples will return to Earth in 53 days.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
45 SpaceX
18 China
6 Russia
5 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 52 to 30. SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 45 to 37.
