- China is gearing up to launch a lunar lander within the next few months.
- The news comes days after a fuel leak doomed a US space mission to the lunar surface.
- The Chinese mission will attempt the first-ever sample collection from the far side of the moon.
China is on track to launch a lunar lander in the first half of this year — a move that could show its ability to beat the US in the race back to the moon.
The China National Space Agency (CNSA) said on Wednesday that its lunar explorer had arrived at its launch site ahead of its mission to collect samples from the far side of the moon.
The mission could be a major demonstration of the nation's spacefaring prowess, as no other nation has brought samples back from the far side of the moon.
The announcement comes a day after the US's most recent efforts to land a spacecraft on the moon were hampered by a critical fuel leak.
US private firm Astrobotic's lander, which is backed by NASA, set off for the moon on Monday with hopes that it could be the first American spacecraft to land on the moon in over 50 years.
But the spacecraft failed soon after it launched into space.
China is hoping to be more successful. It has a solid track record for lunar landings and became the first nation to land a rover on the far side of the moon in 2019. That mission enabled it to collect the first new lunar samples in 45 years in 2020.
China's new mission will aim to deliver a lunar probe called Chang'e 6 to the moon.
It will attempt to collect about 70 ounces of material, both scooped and drilled, from the far side of the moon before delivering its payload safely back to Earth, per online news site Spacenews.
The Chinese lander will carry equipment from France, Italy, Sweden, and the European Space Agency, per state-run Chinese news agency Xinhua.
The mission's orbiter, a spacecraft that will wait in the moon's orbit to rendezvous with the probe to take it back to Earth, will also carry a Pakistani payload, per Xinhua.
The US and China both have aggressive programs to return to the moon, a strategic target for many nations vying to expand their people's reach beyond Earth.
CNSA aims to bring humans to the moon by the end of the decade. NASA recently announced it was delaying its own mission to put boots back on the moon, but still aims to get there before China with a predicted launch date in 2026.
While Astrobotic's hopes of landing its first Peregrine lander on the moon were dashed this week, it's not the end for the US private moon landing missions.
Another company, Intuitive Machines, is getting ready to launch its own NASA-backed lunar lander, IM-1, within the next few weeks.