Chang'e-6
Chinese lunar far-side sample-return mission launched on 3 May 2024 that landed in the South Pole-Aitken basin on 2 June 2024 and returned 1,935.3 grams on 25 June 2024. A 2025 peer-reviewed laboratory study of impact glass beads in the returned soil measured equivalent water abundances of roughly 10–1,070 micrograms per gram. Solar-wind hydration profiles were found in mare glass beads; the full numerical range is not attributed solely to solar-wind water. These are findings from returned material, not extraction on the Moon.
Objective. Return samples from the lunar far side; the volatile evidence comes from laboratory analysis of collected impact glass beads, not resource extraction on the Moon.
Listed for scientific context. This mission published a resource finding but is not counted as a resource mission.
Facts
- Kind
- Spacecraft
- Mission type
- Sample return
- Target
- MoonApollo basin within the South Pole-Aitken basin, lunar far sideOn the Moon map: Apollo basin
- Launch
- 2024-05-03
- Launch vehicle
- Long March 5
- Phase
- EndedCNSA/Xinhua timeline (2024-06-26) and sample-mass release (2024-06-28).
- Outcome
- SuccessBasis: agency statement
- Why it is included
- Published resource finding (science context)
Outcome statement (agency statement)
China's Chang'e-6 mission collected 1,935.3 grams of samples from the far side of the moon, preliminary measurement by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) showed Friday.
What comes next
This mission has ended.
Participants
Operators, payload owners, carriers and customers are recorded separately.
| Organization | Role |
|---|---|
| China National Space Administration | Operator |
Resources and evidence
| Resource | Evidence |
|---|---|
| Regolith | Sampled |
| Volatiles | Sampled |
Open evidence gaps
- 'Apollo basin' comes from peer-reviewed literature (PNAS 2025) rather than the CNSA timeline, which says only 'South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin'.
Sources
6 excerpts from 3 publicationsOne web address counts as one publication.
China's Chang'e-6 mission collected 1,935.3 grams of samples from the far side of the moon, preliminary measurement by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) showed Friday.
The Chang'e-6 probe was launched by a Long March-5 rocket from the Wenchang Space Launch Site on May 3.
successfully landed at the designated landing area in the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin on June 2
Here, we report the water abundances and hydrogen isotope compositions and their distribution in farside IGBs collected by the Chang’e-6 mission to investigate the role of IGBs in the lunar surface water cycle.
Farside IGBs are found to have water abundances of ~10–1,070 μg.g −1 with hydrogen isotopes (δD) ranging from –988‰ to >2000‰ and display typical SW-H 2 O hydration profiles. The SW-H 2 O hydration depths in farside IGBs are strikingly shallower than in nearside IGBs. Moreover, the hydration profiles are only found in mare IGBs, with none observed in non-mare IGBs, indicating that SW-H 2 O hydration in IGBs is likely composition dependent.
The CE6 Homo-IGBs were measured to have equivalent water abundances of ~10–1070 μg.g −1 with H isotope compositions (in notation of δD, δD = 1000 × (D/H sample /D/H SMOW -1), where D/H SMOW is the D/H ratio of the standard mean ocean water; Methods) ranging from – 988 ± 61 to 3718 ± 535‰ after spallation correction at a cosmic ray exposure age of 108 million years ago (Fig. 3 and Supplementary Data 3 ; Methods).
Cite this record
SpaceMiningData, “Chang'e-6”, dataset version a00fa2c68a45, built 2026-11-11, https://spaceminingdata.com/missions/cnsa-change-6.html. Record checked 2026-09-25.