Image credit: CNSA/CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab

Coming to full-stop after a 53-day space sojourn to the Moon and back, China’s Chang’e-6 return capsule stuffed with its cache of lunar specimens parachuted into a pre-selected site within Siziwang Banner in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The scientific catch of the day were samples from the unexplored southern mare plain of the Moon’s Apollo basin interior, in the northeast interior of the far side South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin.

Earth’s Moon as viewed from the International Space Station.
Image credit: NASA

 

 

Chain reaction

But the just landed specimens from the far side of the Moon also signals technological knowhow and while plowing new ground for the country’s space exploration capacity, it is also sparking a chain-reaction in both scientific and policy-making circles within the U.S.

For details, please read my new Aviation Week & Space Technology article – “Far-Side Moon Samples Set China’s Future In Stone” – at:

https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/space/far-side-moon-samples-set-chinas-future-stone

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