China’s Chang’e 6 mission launched final week to the Moon is carrying an undisclosed rover to the lunar far facet, new pictures reveal.
Observers have noticed a wierd new spacecraft strapped to the facet of a Chang’e 6 lander scheduled to the touch down on the Moon subsequent month.
China’s area company efficiently launched its Chang’e 6 mission payload aboard an autonomous Lengthy March 5 rocket on Friday, aiming to be the first-ever nation to return rock samples from the lunar far facet.
The mission’s primary payload is anticipated to the touch down in a crater close to the Moon’s south pole in early June, the place a lander would scoop up 2kg of rocks and ship them again to Earth in a return module.
China beforehand disclosed that the spacecraft additionally carries with it payloads from France, Sweden, Italy and Pakistan to the Moon.
However new images reveal an undisclosed small grey object with wheels strapped to the lander’s facet that additionally seems to have been launched with the mission.
“That appears like a beforehand undisclosed mini rover on the facet of the Chang’e-6 lander,” area reporter Andrew Jones, who intently screens China’s area missions, wrote on X.
Whereas the thriller rover’s primary process stays unknown, a press release from the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, which offered elements for the mission, means that the undisclosed robotic has an infrared imaging spectrometer.
That is possible not the primary time a Chinese language mission to the Moon has carried a secret payload.
In 2022, an out-of-control rocket booster that crashed onto the Moon, forming a weird crater, is extensively suspected to have carried an undisclosed payload.
Whereas the Chinese language authorities has disputed claims that the rocket was one in every of their very own, evaluation of knowledge on the trajectory and light-weight from the item “present conclusively” that it was a “Lengthy March 3C rocket physique (R/B)” from China’s Chang’e 5-T1 mission.
Researchers from the College of Arizona within the US additionally suspect that the rocket booster had a big mass on the highest balancing the 2 engines on the backside.
Nasa chief Invoice Nelson has additionally raised considerations beforehand concerning the secretive nature of China’s area packages.
“China has made extraordinary strides, particularly within the final 10 years, however they’re very, very secretive,” he advised lawmakers at Capitol Hill earlier this yr.
“We imagine that a number of their so-called civilian area programme is a army programme. And I believe, in impact, we’re in a race,” Mr Nelson stated, urging the US to “not let down our guard”.
