Ten years ago, China became the third country to gently place a craft on the lunar star. Since then, it has repeated the feat twice and is preparing to launch its fourth mission in collaboration with France.
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The Chang’E-6 mission is due to take off in May 2024 aboard a Long March rocket, heading for the far side of the Moon. Since Chang’e-3 landed on December 14, 2013, China has built a space station, sent a robot to Mars and become the first nation to land a probe on the far side of the Moon.
The objective of Chang’E-6 is to bring back rock samples for the first time from this region invisible from Earth, but also to study the very tenuous atmosphere which surrounds our satellite. This work is entrusted to an instrument called DORN, designed by the Toulouse Institute for Research in Astrophysics and Planetology (IRAP).
DORN will be responsible for measuring the presence of a radioactive gas, radon. “It is a gas that is produced in rocks inside the Moonspecifies Pierre-Yves Meslin, planetologist at IRAP, in China at the moment to prepare for this mission. A certain quantity of this gas which is produced in the lunar crust will be able to reach the surface and probably migrate from the hottest zones to the coldest zones, in particular up to the level of the polar regions where it can be cryogenically trapped and form ice cream”
“It’s a bit like a tracer gas which will allow us to understand the transport of other gases and other volatile species in the lunar environment.”
Pierre-Yves Meslin, planetologist at IRAPat franceinfo
DORN will have two days to carry out its measurements on the Moon and therefore help to better understand the dynamics of the weak local atmosphere. The main Chinese mission will then take off again to send its precious cargo of samples back to Earth. Next goal for China: send humans to the Moon by 2030 and build a lunar base.
