China has launched an ambitious mission to far side of the moon

Spacecraft will be first to get sample from the ‘dark side.’

China on Friday embarked on one of its most ambitious space missions yet: the launch of a probe to retrieve samples from the far side of the moon and bring them back to Earth within two months.

If successful, it would be a first, for any country.

Beijing has ambitions to become a space power and scientific force, laying out plans to land Chinese astronauts on the lunar surface by 2030 and set up a base at the moon’s south pole. This has created a new frontier in its broad rivalry with the United States, also including computer chips and solar panels.

China’s methodical steps over the years to extend its reach from Earth orbit to the moon and even Mars have worried NASA — whose own moon program, called Artemis, is facing delays — and members of Congress.

During a NASA budget hearing this week, Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, said that “while the U.S. remains the global leader in space exploration, we face increasing challenges internationally.”

China has already successfully landed unmanned spacecraft on the far side of the moon and brought back samples from the near side, but Friday’s mission combines the two.

A Long March 5 rocket topped with an 8.2-ton spacecraft named Chang’e 6 was scheduled to blasted off just before 4 p.m. local time Friday (4 a.m. ET) from the country’s southernmost spaceport, the Wenchang Space Launch Site on the subtropical island of Hainan. In Chinese mythology, Chang’e is a woman who consumed an elixir of life before flying to the moon.

The probe, originally built as a backup for China’s 2020 mission to the moon’s near side, is expected to touch down in the Apollo crater in the larger South Pole-Aitkin basin of the moon.

Chang’e 6′s odyssey will take 53 days, more than twice the time its predecessor took, and bring back about 4.4 pounds of samples from the side of the moon that’s not visible from Earth.

“Chang’e 6 aims to conduct systematic and longterm research on the far side of the moon so that we can analyze the structure, physical properties and composition of lunar soil, and try to update our scientific data about the moon,” Wang Qiong, deputy chief designer of the mission, told state broadcaster China Central Television.

The United States and the then Soviet Union both brought back lunar samples, but they were all collected on the near side of the moon.

The far side, which has more craters and less evidence of volcanic activity, is difficult to explore because scientists on Earth cannot communicate via direct radio signal with spacecraft in the remote region. China says it has solved this with its relay satellite Queqiao (“Magpie Bridge”) system.

China launched a relay satellite in March to facilitate communications between Chang’e 6 and ground stations on Earth. It is set to serve two follow-up lunar expeditions, preliminarily slated for 2026 and 2028.