Not long ago, Chang'e-6 successfully returned to Earth with soil from the back of the moon. This is the most technologically advanced lunar exploration mission in China’s aerospace history to date. It has not only made breakthroughs in lunar retrograde orbit design and control technology, but also in lunar backside intelligent sampling technology and lunar backside take-off and ascent technology. It has also achieved the world’s first automatic sampling on the lunar backside. Going back, what innovations and creations of Chinese astronauts are behind this aerospace feat? How many secrets of the moon will the soil retrieved from the back of the moon reveal for us in exploring the universe?
Precise obstacle avoidance, intelligent sampling
Chang'e-6 successfully brought back lunar soil
On June 25, 2024, the Siziwang Banner Space Landing Site in Inner Mongolia welcomed a special "guest": after 53 days of space roaming, the Chang'e-6 returner It landed smoothly and brought back a precious "delivery" to the earth - lunar samples from the far side of the moon. This is also the first time that humans have achieved sampling and return from the far side of the moon.
Precious lunar samples will provide humans with more valuable data and information about the moon, and are expected to deepen human research on the formation and evolution history of the moon.
The pre-selected landing area of Chang'e-6 - the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon, has a drop of more than 10 kilometers. This is like landing a small truck into the mountains. It not only requires precise obstacle avoidance, but also advanced technology Guidance, navigation and control systems to ensure safe landing.
Experts have repeatedly demonstrated at the test site of Tongji University. Large and small wooden boards are used at different heights and angles to simulate the undulations of the ground seen from the air.
After Chang'e-6 landed smoothly, sampling the far side of the moon became even more difficult. Limited by the length of relay communication on the far side of the moon, Chang'e-6 adopted fast intelligent sampling technology to shorten the effective working time of lunar surface sampling to less than 20 hours. It used two methods: drill drilling sampling and robotic arm surface sampling. Collect lunar samples separately.
Compared with Chang'e-5, Chang'e-6 has made great improvements in intelligence and autonomy.
China Aerospace Science and Technology Group Ma Ruqi : As long as you send a command, it will connect the entire task, such as touching the moon, sampling and setting out. The whole process only needs one command to connect it all and execute it. This improves efficiency.
On the mysterious and distant moon, there is no shielding from the magnetic field and atmosphere, and the lunar soil is directly exposed to solar wind and other cosmic radiation. The study of lunar soil will provide powerful help for mankind to understand the long-term evolution of the earth's space environment and solar activity. It has been 20 years since China's lunar exploration project was established.
Wu Weiren, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chief designer of the China Lunar Exploration Project: I think in the past twenty years, from scratch to now, we have been ahead in some aspects.
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