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China seeks 2025 launch for lunar mission spacecraft Chang'e-6 from Hainan's Wenchang site

According to the Hainan Daily newspaper, the engineering center of China's Lunar Exploration Program has already selected the equipment that will be installed on the spacecraft

HAIKOU /China/, November 26. China National Space Administration (CNSA) aims to launch the Chang'e-6 spacecraft in 2025 from Wenchang Space Launch Site on Hainan Island, the Hainan Daily reported with reference to CNSA.

The newspaper received this information at 2nd Global Partnership Workshop on Space Exploration and Innovation held this week jointly by the Chinese government and the United Nations in Haikou, the administrative center of Hainan. According to the newspaper, in about two years, CNSA will send the Chang'e-6 to the dark side of the moon to collect a regolith sample.

According to the newspaper, the engineering center of China's Lunar Exploration Program has already selected the equipment that will be installed on the spacecraft. Namely, it was decided to install a radon detector, a CubeSat standard nanosatellite, a negative ion analyzer and an angle reflector on the Chang'e-6 in collaboration with other countries.

"I hope that this foreign equipment will allow us to make new discoveries during our lunar research," CLEP engineering center commented.

Hainan plays an important role in China's space development. The Wenchang Space Launch Site is one of China's four space launch complexes and is the only place in the country where technical conditions allow the launch of the CZ-7A, the longest (60.7 m) rocket of national design. Other next-generation launchers, which China can be put into orbit only in Hainan, are the commercial CZ-8, as well as the CZ-5 and CZ-5B. They are the most massive (870 and 837.5 tons, respectively) of all counterparts developed in China.