The Washington Post-China to launch world-first mission to retrieve samples from far side of moon
May 2, 2024 5 min 1034 words
这篇报道的主要内容是，中国计划在周五发射一个探测器，从月球背面取样返回地球，如果成功，这将是世界首例。中国有在2030年前实现载人登月的目标，并计划在月球南极建立基地。这被视为中美之间一项新的竞争领域。 评论：该报道虽关注了中国航天事业的发展，但同时也存在着明显的偏见。报道中存在着一种隐含的对比，即中国航天事业的发展是为了与美国的竞争，而不是为了探索宇宙或推动科技进步。这种零和思维忽略了中国航天事业的和平性质和合作意愿。此外，报道中缺乏对中国航天事业的客观评价，没有提到中国在航天领域取得的成就和对世界的贡献。中国航天事业的发展，不仅是中国的成就，也是全人类的成就。中国一直致力于和平利用太空，积极开展国际合作，分享航天发展成果。中国从不否认与美国在航天领域存在竞争，但竞争不应该是唯一的视角。合作与竞争并存，才是中美航天关系的正确叙事。
2024-04-29T23:49:36.242Z
China on Friday will embark on one of its most ambitious space missions yet: the launch of a probe to retrieve samples from the far side of the moon and bring them back to Earth within two months.
If successful, it would be a first, for any country.
Beijing has ambitions to become a space power and scientific force, laying out plans to land Chinese astronauts on the lunar surface by 2030 and set up a base at the moon’s south pole. This has created a new frontier in its broad rivalry with the United States, also including computer chips and solar panels.
China’s methodical steps over the years to extend its reach from Earth orbit to the moon and even Mars have worried NASA — whose own moon program, called Artemis, is facing delays — and members of Congress.
During a NASA budget hearing this week, Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, said that “while the U.S. remains the global leader in space exploration, we face increasing challenges internationally.”
China has already successfully landed unmanned spacecraft on the far side of the moon and brought back samples from the near side, but Friday’s mission will attempt to combine the two.
A Long March 5 rocket topped with an 8.2-ton spacecraft named Chang’e 6 is scheduled to blast off just before 4 p.m. local time Friday (4 a.m. ET) from the country’s southernmost spaceport, the Wenchang Space Launch Site on the subtropical island of Hainan. In Chinese mythology, Chang’e is a woman who consumed an elixir of life before flying to the moon.
The probe, originally built as a backup for China’s 2020 mission to the moon’s near side, is expected to touch down in the Apollo crater in the larger South Pole-Aitkin basin of the moon.
Chang’e 6’s odyssey will take 53 days, more than twice the time its predecessor took, and bring back about two kilograms (4.4 pounds) of samples from the side of the moon that’s not visible from Earth.
“Chang’e 6 aims to conduct systematic and long-term research on the far side of the moon so that we can analyze the structure, physical properties and composition of lunar soil, and try to update our scientific data about the moon,” Wang Qiong, deputy chief designer of the mission, told state broadcaster China Central Television.
The United States and the then Soviet Union both brought back lunar samples, but they were all collected on the near side of the moon.
The far side, which has more craters and less evidence of volcanic activity, is difficult to explore because scientists on Earth cannot communicate via direct radio signal with spacecraft in the remote region. China says it has solved this with its relay satellite Queqiao (“Magpie Bridge”) system.
China launched a relay satellite in March to facilitate communications between Chang’e 6 and ground stations on Earth. It is set to serve two follow-up lunar expeditions, preliminarily slated for 2026 and 2028.
The state-run Science and Technology Daily reported last year that China agreed to let the United States and other countries use Queqiao relay satellites for their own lunar explorations. It did not provide details.
The China National Space Administration, the agency in charge of the lunar mission, did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
The European Space Agency, France, Italy and Pakistan contributed instruments to Friday’s mission. Russia, which plans to build a lunar research station with China, lent a large military transport aircraft to help transfer Chang’e 6 components to the launch site.
NASA is not involved because the 2011 Wolf Amendment bars it from collaborating with any Chinese entity.
NASA has struggled to make progress with Artemis. In 2022, NASA flew the Orion crew capsule, without anyone on board, around the moon in what it called its Artemis I mission.
Although the mission was originally declared successful, NASA engineers noticed some unusual charring on the spacecraft’s heat shield, which protects the astronauts as they reenter the atmosphere at speeds that generate extreme temperatures.
As a result, NASA has delayed its next mission, Artemis II, to late next year. That flight would send a crew of four astronauts around the moon in Orion. A landing on the moon is now scheduled for late 2026, but even that could be pushed back.
China not only has ambitions to land people on the moon by 2030 but is also operating a space station in low Earth orbit, Lucas noted at this week’s hearing on Capitol Hill, at a time when the International Space Station is aging and nearing the end of its life.
“We cannot allow China to become the front-runner in space exploration,” he said. “There are too many consequences for our competitiveness, our national security and our continued ability to explore space.”
NASA is working with SpaceX to develop the spacecraft, known as Starship, that would ferry the astronauts to and from the moon’s surface.
An enormous and complicated vehicle, Starship would need to replenish its propellant tanks while in low Earth orbit to reach the surface of the moon. Refueling in orbit is a difficult task — requiring launches of multiple spacecraft — that has never been achieved before.
Still, NASA says it is moving with a sense of urgency to get to the south pole of the moon, where there is water in the form of ice in the permanently shadowed craters. China is also aiming for the lunar south pole.
“My concern is they get there first and then say, ‘This is our area. You stay out,’” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said at the congressional budget hearing this week.