Chang'e 5 and 6
Author(s): Thomas Tarrants (Sirius_Alpha)
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Chang'e 5 and 6 are China's first sample-return missions to the Moon, and the first overall since Luna 24 in 1976. Each mission is comprised of an orbiter, a sample-return capsule derived from Shenzhou, and a lander. Both missions were launched in 2020 and 2024 respectively, and are precursors to a future Chinese crewed lunar landing planned to occur sometime in the 2030s
| Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (2007-Present) |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| Mission | Component | Start | End |
| Chang'e 5 | Orbiter | 2020-Nov-23 | (Active) |
| Orbited the Moon between 2020-Nov-28 and 2020-Dec-13. Later went on an extended mission to the Sun-Earth L1 point in 2021, before returning to the Moon and becoming the first spacecraft to use a distant retrograde orbit in 2022 | |||
| Lander | 2020-Nov-29 | 2020-Dec-3 | |
| Landed near Mons Rümker, Oceanus Procellarum on December 1st. It was unintentionally disabled when the Ascender module launched back into lunar orbit on December 3rd | |||
| Ascender | 2020-Dec-3 | 2020-Dec-7 | |
| Performed the first fully robotic rendezvous/docking in lunar orbit when it returned back to Chang'e-5's orbiter on December 5th | |||
| Returner | 2020-Dec-16 | ||
| Returned 1,731 g of lunar material back to Earth upon landing on Inner Mongolia, China | |||
| Chang'e 6 | Orbiter | 2024-May-3 | (Active) |
| Entered lunar orbit on May 8th. Primary mission expected to last for 53 days | |||
| Lander | 2024-May-30 | (Active) | |
| Landed within Apollo Basin on June 1st, becoming the second spacecraft to land on the Far Side of the Moon after Chang'e 4 | |||
| Ascender | TBD | ||
| - | |||
| Returner | TBD | ||
| - | |||
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