News | Why the General Secretary called this project "the commanding heights of scientific and technological competition"

At 14:07 on June 25, Chang'e-6 landed safely in the designated area of ​​Siziwang Banner, Inner Mongolia, carrying precious "local specialties" dug from the far side of the moon, completing the world's first return of samples from the far side of the moon. On the same day, General Secretary Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory message, congratulating the successful completion of the Chang'e-6 lunar exploration project.

The Chang'e-6 mission took about 53 days from launch to sampling and return, during which time it made breakthroughs in many key technologies, including the design and control of the lunar retrograde orbit, intelligent and rapid sampling on the far side of the moon, and takeoff and ascent on the far side of the moon.

In his congratulatory message, the General Secretary highly praised the achievements of Chang'e-6, and particularly pointed out the need to "continue to implement major aerospace projects such as deep space exploration."

The Chang'e-6 returner recovery site photographed on June 25, 2024.

Deep space exploration refers to the activities of space exploration of the moon and extraterrestrial bodies beyond it. General Secretary Xi Jinping is very concerned about the progress of my country's deep space exploration projects. During the Chang'e-3 mission, he made a special trip to the lobby of the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center to watch the images taken by the Chang'e-3 lander and rover on a giant electronic display screen; after the successful completion of the Chang'e-3, Chang'e-4, and Chang'e-5 missions, he met with representatives of the participants in the three missions at the Great Hall of the People. my country's first Mars exploration mission, the Tianwen-1 probe, successfully landed on Mars, and the General Secretary sent a congratulatory message...

General Secretary Xi Jinping once called deep space exploration "the commanding heights of scientific and technological competition."

First of all, from the perspective of the characteristics of deep space exploration, compared with near-Earth space missions, deep space exploration has a long tracking and measurement distance, a large signal transmission delay, high navigation and measurement difficulty, and a long mission duration. Therefore, carrying out deep space exploration projects reflects a country's comprehensive national strength and innovation capabilities.

From Chang'e's "moon exploration" to Tianwen's "Mars exploration" and then to Xihe's "solar exploration", as my country's comprehensive national strength continues to improve, its scientific and technological innovation capabilities and space exploration capabilities continue to increase, my country's deep space exploration is moving forward step by step towards deeper and farther space.

Secondly, deep space exploration can greatly expand human understanding of the Earth, the solar system, and the universe. It has important strategic significance for promoting the development and utilization of space resources and the innovative development of space science and technology. Therefore, it has become an important area for countries to plan.

Take lunar exploration as an example. The moon is the closest planet to the earth, rich in resources and energy, and has a special environment. It is a frontier base and testing ground for humans to move into deep space. Therefore, most countries' deep space exploration starts with lunar exploration.

At present, the material resources detected on the moon with great utilization potential mainly include helium-3, water ice, rare and precious metal minerals, etc. In addition, the solar energy on the surface of the moon is about 25,000 times the total energy created by humans in a year. If we can realize the utilization of lunar resources and energy through technological innovation in the future, it will inevitably greatly expand the sustainability of human resources.

In addition, in the view of scientists, the extreme environment on the moon is a natural and ideal comprehensive experimental field for conducting basic scientific research, which will give rise to major scientific discoveries and disruptive scientific and technological achievements.

——Greatly promote scientific research and technological innovation

my country's lunar exploration project has been in operation for 20 years since it was launched in 2004. From the successful completion of the lunar exploration by Chang'e-1 to the world's first return of samples from the far side of the moon by Chang'e-6, the lunar exploration project has established a ground-based deep space tracking and control communication network and verified a series of key deep space exploration technologies, including remote tracking and control communication, satellite relay communication, and semi-ballistic hopping high-speed reentry.

Pang Zhihao, a researcher at the China Academy of Space Technology, said that deep space exploration requires technical support from multiple fields and disciplines. The success of an exploration plan can comprehensively improve scientific understanding of the solar system and the level of aerospace technology, and the resulting technological progress can also spread to many fields.

Taking the lunar exploration project as an example, the moon is in a vacuum state, and the temperature difference between morning and night is extremely large. Therefore, it is necessary to develop equipment products that are light and small, have strong autonomy, and are resistant to vacuum and temperature changes and adapt to the special environment of the moon.

In the 20 years since the implementation of the lunar exploration project, it has driven major scientific and technological innovations in many fields of information, micro-electromechanical, power, new materials, new processes and so on in my country, and formed a large number of advanced test methods, standards and specifications. Currently, many technologies have been applied in other aerospace missions and related fields.

Extraterrestrial life detection is an important part of deep space exploration. In the vast starry sky, whether life exists only on Earth has attracted scientists from all over the world to explore it with all their efforts.

Chang'e 6 is one of the four phases of my country's lunar exploration project. In the future, Chang'e 7 and Chang'e 8 will also be launched to achieve sampling and return of samples from the lunar South Pole region and initially establish an international lunar research station. The "Tianwen 2" mission will return samples from asteroids and rendezvous with comets; the "Tianwen 3" mission will return samples from Mars. In addition, my country is also demonstrating the "Tianwen 4" mission for Jupiter system exploration and the solar system edge exploration mission.

The successful implementation of these deep space exploration missions will greatly enhance human understanding of scientific issues such as the origin and evolution of the solar system, planetary habitability, and the origin of life.

Sun Jiadong, the first chief designer of the lunar exploration project, once said: "From the moment Chang'e-1 flew to the moon, I knew that once the door to the moon was opened, the pace of deep space exploration would not stop."

Proofreading｜Li Shanshan, Wang Zhuojie, Song Chunyan, Yan Tiantian, Mao Changzhi