China's lunar probe to carry payloads from European, French space agencies

BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhua) -- China's next lunar probe Chang'e-6 will carry payloads from the European and French space agencies, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp revealed on Tuesday.

The planned payloads are two scientific instruments for lunar surface research, the company said in a post on the Twitter-like platform Sina Weibo.

Such international cooperation came from two memorandums of understanding the China National Space Administration signed last week with the European Space Agency and the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, the French space agency.

The European equipment is a negative ion analyzer that can be used to conduct fundamental research on planetary science, and the French instrument is a detector to measure radon gas and its decay products on the moon.

According to China's lunar exploration program, the Chang'e-6 mission is scheduled to be launched around 2024 to complete a sample-return task from the far side of the moon. If the mission succeeds, it will become the first time for humans to get lunar samples from the far side.

The Chang'e-5, launched in 2020, was the country's most recent mission to the moon. Its probe retrieved a total of 1,731 grams of lunar soil from the near side.