Foreign scientists thank China for role in Chang'e-6 lunar mission

After China's Chang'e-6 touched down on the far side of the moon on Sunday morning to collect samples, foreign scientists participating in the mission expressed their excitement and thanks to China.

The Chang'e-6 mission carried four payloads developed through international cooperation, providing more opportunities for global scientists and merging human expertise in space exploration. 

The payloads included the DORN (Detection of Outgassing Radon) from the French Space Agency, NILS (The Negative Ions at the Lunar Surface) from the European Space Agency, and a retroreflector from Italy. These three instruments will carry out exploratory scientific tasks on the far side of the moon.

The DORN will be used to study how radon, a noble gas, escapes from the lunar regolith, and how this radioactive gas and other forms of matter like water are transported in the moon's exosphere. The NILS will be used to measure solar winds that reflect from the lunar surface upon reaching the moon, while the laser retroreflector mainly aims to measure the distance between Earth and the moon.

The probe also carried a cube satellite from Pakistan known as ICUBE-Q, which separated from the Chang'e-6 orbiter on May 8 to carry out exploration activities, such as capturing images of the moon.

Praise from global experts

Witnessing the landing of Chang'e-6, Pierre-Yves Meslin, principal investigator of DORN from France, said, "We have been thinking about this moment for years and even more intensely for the last few months and weeks and days. We were watching at the moon every night here in Beijing."

"We are very glad to be on the surface of the moon. Our instrument will start working. Now the pressure will be on us to succeed in our measurements."

He said the instrument is designed to study the origin and dynamics of the lunar exosphere. It will try to measure a radioactive gas called radon that is produced by lunar rocks in the lunar interior. "This gas might migrate from the warm regions of the moon to the cold regions of the moon, and we will try to understand its dynamics in the lunar environment. It will be the first time to measure it on the surface of the moon."

He said his team had only three and a half years to develop the instrument. "The schedule was very tight but we succeeded with the help of our Chinese partners."

"It's always good to share ideas with the different countries, which allows us to move forward to enrich our knowledge. As Europeans, we don't have the capacity to deploy our instruments on the surface of the moon yet. So we rely on international partners. China is now one of the most reliable partners that can safely land on the moon, as we have one more proof today," said Meslin.

"Thanks to China so much for taking us to the moon," Sylvestre Maurice, a French astronomer from the University of Toulouse, said after he watched the landing process in a control room at the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences on Sunday.

"Today's landing was absolutely amazing. It's hard to land on a planet, and it's very hard especially on the moon. Don't think it's easy. Remember it's on the far side of the moon where we cannot see. And China even had to put another relay satellite to watch the landing. They landed right where they wanted to. So it's quite an achievement, something we've been looking for for so many years," said Maurice.

"The far side of the moon is very unique. The South Pole-Aitken Basin is a huge basin. There was an impact long time ago to remove most of the crust, so we might have landed as close as possible to the mantle of the moon," Maurice said, adding that "as planetary scientists, the best thing we can dream of is to have samples in our lab. Nothing is better than having samples here, where we can study them and really go into the details of the story of the moon."

He said French scientists have the lunar sample returned by the Chang'e-5 mission and would carry out research on it. "We were very lucky to collaborate with China on different projects including the Chang'e lunar program and the Tianwen-1 Mars mission," he added.

Mathieu Grialou, a representative from the French space agency CNES, noted that Chang'e-6 will be the first mission to bring back samples from the far side of the moon. "We are very thrilled to be a small part of this very big mission."

"We are very happy to cooperate with China on this mission as China is now a big player in space," Grialou said. "It's great that we can contribute together to better knowledge of the moon and our solar system."

Patrick Pinet, a scientist at the University of Toulouse, said Chang'e-6's landing seemed smooth and easy, but it relied on a very heavy workload and high skills. "And we're very impressed by what was achieved by China this time again."

"It's a very moving time for me," he said, noting that when he was 10 years old, he watched Neil Armstrong landing on the moon on TV, and on Sunday he had his first experience of witnessing a landing on the far side of the moon in a control room in China. "It's 55 years later, and a lot of things have evolved through time."

"We really expect to have some success with this mission and with the next ones to come," he added.

Neil Melville-Kenney, NILS technical officer of the ESA, said the CNSA's initiative to invite international partners to participate in the Chang'e-6 mission is very much appreciated by the international community.

"It's a very impressive mission, a very ambitious mission. So we are very pleased to be a part of it. And the collaboration has gone very smoothly. Now we are waiting for the payload to be turned on so that we can get our first data," he said.

"It's very important to have international cooperation for space exploration. I think space exploration encourages us to consider our planet as one and our people as one. And it's important that we work together as we start to explore the solar system more and more. Together we can achieve greater things," he added.

(With input from Xinhua)

Read more: Experts from around world praise Chang'e-6 mission, urge cooperation