Background

• Chang’e 6 is the 6th spacecraft in the series of Lunar exploration missions of the  China National Space Administration (CNSA).
• China’s lunar exploration efforts are managed by the China Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP), a sub-unit of the China National Space Administration (CNSA). The programme consists of four phases: 
• Phase 1– Chang’e 1 and 2, which reached lunar orbit in 2007 and 2010, undertaking mapping and remote sensing missions.
• Phase 2– Chang’e 3 and 4 , which placed a lunar lander and rover on the Moon’s surface in 2013 and 2018.
• Phase 3– Chang’e 5, which collected lunar samples in the Moon’s Mons Rümker area in 2020 and returned them to Earth.
• Phase 4– Chang’e 6, 7 and 8, aim to develop technologies for long-term exploration of the Moon, and prepare for China’s future lunar station, the ILRS.

About Chang’e 6

• Chang’e 6 was launched from the Wenchang Space Launch Centre on China’s current most powerful rocket, the Long March 5, bound for the far side of the Moon, where it will collect a sample of lunar material and return it to Earth for study.
• Chang’e 6 is composed of four independent modules: the lander, the ascender, the orbiter and the return vehicle, with an estimated total mass of 8,200kg.
• After entering lunar orbit, the lander separated from the orbiter vehicle and descended to the lunar surface.
• It performed a fully autonomous soft landing in the South Pole–Aitken Basin, a 2,500km-diameter impact crater on the far side of the Moon.
• The South Pole–Aitken (SPA) Basin is understood to be the largest, deepest and oldest crater on the Moon (4.2–4.3 billion years), with an unusual geochemical composition that is different from the rest of the lunar surface. The impact that created the South Pole–Aitken Basin is believed to have excavated deep into the lunar crust.
• This could potentially provide insights into the geological composition of the lunar interior.
• Up until Chang’e 6’s landing, China’s Chang’e 4 lander and rover had been the only spacecraft to have touched down on the lunar far side.
• The samples Chang’e 6 collects will enable further study of the region’s composition, giving scientists a much better understanding of the formation of the Moon.

Why explore the far side of the Moon?

• • The Moon’s far side is often referred to as the dark side because it cannot be seen from the Earth, not because it does not catch the Sun’s rays. 
  • The Moon is tidally locked with the Earth and therefore, we see only one side of the Moon, also known as the near side.

• The Moon is tidally locked to the Earth because it rotates in exactly the same time as it takes to orbit the Earth. That is why we only see one side of the Moon.

• Examining the samples from the far side can help scientists solve mysteries about the origin and evolution of the Moon — till now, scientists have only been able to analyse samples from the near side.

https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-missions/chang-e-6 

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-sci-tech/china-mission-far-side-moon-9307878/