"Show off our national treasure 42" Chang'e 6: Unveiling the "veil" on the back of the moon
2024-08-15
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[Show off our national treasure 42]
Guangming Daily reporter Li Chunjian and Zhang Lei
At 14:07 on June 25, 2024, the Chang'e-6 returner landed at the Siziwang Banner landing site in Inner Mongolia - the "Chang'e family" "Sixth Miss" is back!
53 days, 760,000 kilometers round trip, Chang'e 6's space journey seems easy and romantic, but it is actually thrilling.
Why?
Because before this, the 10 lunar samplings conducted by humans were all on the front side of the moon. As you can imagine, it is not easy to uncover the "dark side of the moon".
"On the far side of the moon, communications are not smooth, and we must add relay satellites to contact the earth. Therefore, we must improve the autonomy of the probe and allow it to give itself programmed instructions." Hu Hao, chief designer of the Chang'e-6 mission, summed it up in one sentence.
The difficulty is that the entire mission is linked together, and each link must be foolproof. For example, whether the probe can successfully land on the moon determines whether the subsequent links can be implemented smoothly.
The destination of the "Sixth Girl" is the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon, which has extremely complex terrain. Researchers have enhanced the automatic identification and obstacle avoidance functions for Chang'e 6. When it was about to land, "Sixth Girl" took the opportunity to slow down and examined and judged the landing conditions as it approached the lunar surface.
After setting foot on the ancient and mysterious South Pole-Aitken Basin, sample collection and lunar scientific exploration began.
The environment on the far side of the moon is complex and changeable. In addition, the time is tight and the task is heavy. The sampling work of Chang'e 6 faces multiple challenges. In order to successfully dig out the "treasures", researchers have equipped Chang'e 6 with two sampling "combination skills" to make "fast work" also "fine work": the first skill is surface sampling, using a robotic arm to carry a sampling device to directly shovel the lunar surface soil, and then place the sample in the surface primary sealing device; the second skill is drilling sampling, using a specific drill bit to drill into the predetermined depth of the lunar surface to drill lunar soil at different depths. In this way, the drill bit will wrap the "fresh" lunar soil into the packing bag while drilling, and ensure that the stratigraphic characteristics of the lunar soil itself will not be destroyed.
From Chang'e-4's visit to "Guanghan" and the first soft landing on the far side of the moon, to Chang'e-5's victory in "Chan Gong" and the first return of samples from an extraterrestrial body in my country, to Chang'e-6's trip to "Xiaohan" and the successful return of "local specialties" from the far side of the moon, achieving the world's first return of samples from the far side of the moon... In the long history of human exploration of the moon, the Chinese have left a few bold and colorful strokes.
Perhaps the question you are most interested in is: What is the difference between the far side and the near side of the moon? Then, let us look forward to the results of Chang'e 6's exploration.
Guangming Daily (Page 01, August 14, 2024)
Source: Guangming Daily
