China says its spacecraft lands on Moon's far side

The Chang'e 6 mission launched from China's Wenchang Spaceport in May

China says its uncrewed craft has successfully landed on the far side of the Moon - an unexplored place almost no-one tries to go.

The Chang'e 6 touched down in the South Pole-Aitken Basin at 06:23 Beijing time on Sunday morning (22:23 GMT Saturday), the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said.

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Launched on 3 May, the mission aims to collect precious rock and soil from this region for the first time in history.

The probe could extract some of the Moon's oldest rocks from a huge crater on its South Pole.

The landing was fraught with risks, because it is very difficult to communicate with spacecraft once they reach the far side of the Moon. China is the only country to have achieved the feat before, landing its Chang'e-4 in 2019.

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After launching from Wenchang Space Launch Center, the Chang'e 6 spacecraft had been orbiting the Moon waiting to land.

The lander component of the mission then separated from the orbiter to touch down on the side of the Moon that faces permanently away from Earth.

During the descent, an autonomous visual obstacle avoidance system was used to automatically detect obstacles, with a visible light camera selecting a comparatively safe landing area based on the brightness and darkness of the lunar surface, the CNSA was quoted as saying by state-run Xinhua news agency.

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The lander hovered about 100m (328ft) above the safe landing area, and used a laser 3D scanner before a slow vertical descent.

The operation was supported by the Queqiao-2 relay satellite, the CNSA said.

Chinese state media described the successful landing as an “historic moment”.

The state broadcaster said “applause erupted at the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center” when the Chang’e landing craft touched down on the Moon early on Sunday morning.

The lander should spend up to three days gathering materials from the surface in an operation the CNSA said would involve "many engineering innovations, high risks and great difficulty".

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"Everyone is very excited that we might get a look at these rocks no-one has ever seen before," explains Professor John Pernet-Fisher, who specialises in lunar geology at the University of Manchester.

He has analysed other lunar rock brought back on the American Apollo mission and previous Chinese missions.

But he says the chance to analyse rock from a completely different area of the Moon could answer fundamental questions about how planets form.

Most of the rocks collected so far are volcanic, similar to what we might find in Iceland or Hawaii.

But the material on the far side would have a different chemistry .

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