Chang'e 6

Chang'e 6, named after the Chinese moon goddess, was the China National Space Administration's sixth robotic Moon mission and its second to bring lunar material back to Earth. It made history as the first mission ever to collect samples from the far side of the Moon—all earlier sample-return missions had only gathered material from the near side.

The mission launched on 3 May 2024 from Hainan Island's Wenchang Space Launch Site. Its lander and rover touched down on the far side on 1 June 2024, in a flat area of the Apollo crater, which sits inside the vast South Pole-Aitken impact basin. Using a robotic scoop and drill, the lander collected 1,935.3 grams of surface soil, rocks, and subsurface material. The drill hole left behind a pattern shaped like the Chinese character *zhong* (中), the first character of China's name, which became a viral symbol on Weibo.

On 3 June 2024, the ascender module launched from the lander, carrying the samples into lunar orbit. It docked with the orbiter on 6 June 2024, transferring the sample container to an Earth-return module. The return capsule re-entered Earth's atmosphere and landed by parachute in Inner Mongolia on 25 June 2024, ending the 53-day mission. In September 2025, the mission team received the World Space Award from the International Astronautical Federation.

Chang'e 6 was built as a backup copy of Chang'e 5, which had returned 1.731 kilograms of material from the lunar near side in 2020. The mission consisted of four modules: the lander (with the ascender on top), the ascender, the orbiter, and the returner. The lander, weighing about 3,200 kilograms, carried a drill capable of reaching two meters below the surface and a scooping device. The ascender, roughly 700 kilograms, autonomously rendezvoused and docked with the orbiter. After sample transfer, the orbiter left lunar orbit, spent about 4.5 days flying back to Earth, and released the returner, which performed a skip reentry—bouncing off the atmosphere once before final descent. The total launch mass was around 8,200 kilograms.

Scientists hope the samples, taken from the southern hemisphere of the far side, may include lunar mantle material ejected by the impact that formed the South Pole-Aitken basin. Such material could reveal differences between the Moon's near side and far side, and shed light on the Moon's origin and the early Solar System.