China's Chang'e-7 mission will launch later this year

According to the Chinese Space Agency, China's upcoming Chang'e-7 lunar mission, scheduled to launch later this year, will study the Moon's south polar region.

China's Chang'e-7 mission will focus on exploring ice on the Moon's south pole and studying whether the region could be suitable for future human scientific bases.

In 2023, India's Chandrayaan-3 mission made history by becoming the first spacecraft to land near this region. Its rover, Pragyan, conducted experiments on the surface and confirmed the region's importance for future exploration.

This mission is part of China's broader Chang'e lunar program, which aims to expand deep-space exploration capabilities and strengthen long-term lunar research.

Objective of the Chang'e-7 Mission

The Chang'e-7 mission will conduct detailed environmental and resource surveys of the Moon's south pole. This region is one of the most scientifically important and least explored.

According to the China Manned Space Agency, this mission will use a multi-stage exploration system, involving operations such as orbiting, landing, roving, and hopping.

This advanced robotic approach will enable the spacecraft to study the surface and shadowed areas, which are difficult to reach, in greater detail than previous missions.

The Moon's south pole is considered crucial because the craters that remain in shadow may contain deposits of water ice. If confirmed, this water could be used for drinking, oxygen production, and even rocket fuel, making long-term human habitation on the Moon more practical.

Achievements of China's Chang'e-6 Mission

In June 2024, China's Chang'e-6 spacecraft successfully collected rock and soil samples from the far side of the Moon and returned to Earth after flying off the lunar surface.

The spacecraft's landing site was the South Pole-Aitken Basin, a crater formed 4 billion years ago, 13 kilometers deep and 2,500 kilometers in diameter.

Chandrayaan-3's landing site was near the Moon's South Pole.

It was launched on May 3, 2024, by a Long March-5 rocket from the Wenchang Space Center in Hainan Province, China.

China aims to land astronauts on the Moon before 2030, and this mission is an important step towards that goal.

China's Chang'e Mission Series

This mission is the sixth mission in the Chang'e lunar exploration program, named after a "Chinese Moon Goddess."

Chang'e-1 and 2 (2007 and 2010): Their primary purpose was to create three-dimensional (3D) maps while orbiting the Moon.

Chang'e-3 (2013): China landed its rover, Yutu, on the lunar surface for the first time. This made China the third country in the world to perform a soft landing on the Moon, after the Soviet Union and the United States.

Chang'e-4 (2019): This was the world's first mission to perform a soft landing on an unexplored and inaccessible part of the Moon. China had already deployed a relay satellite, Queqiao, for this purpose.

Chang'e-5 (2020): This was a complex sample-return mission. The spacecraft successfully collected soil and rock samples from the lunar surface and safely returned them to Earth. With this, China became the third country in the world to return lunar samples after nearly four decades.