Chang'e-6 scheduled to land on moon's far side

China’s Chang'e-6 lunar mission will be launched around 2024, with related development tasks currently in progress, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said on Friday. As scheduled, it will carry out morphology detection and geological background survey to discover and collect samples from different regions and ages in the South Pole-Aitken Basin.

Generally, the far side of the moon is viewed as older than the near side with important scientific research value. As planned, the fourth phase of China's lunar exploration program, including the Chang'e-6, Chang'e-7, and Chang'e-8 missions, is aimed to initially build a basic model of an international lunar scientific research station in the moon's South Pole.