Latest Scientific Results of China’s Lunar and Deep Space Exploration (2022–2024)

Abstract

China has successfully launched six lunar probes so far. From Chang’E-1 to Chang’E-4, they completed the circling, landing and roving exploration, of which Chang’E-4 was the first landing on the far side of the Moon in human history. Chang’ E-5 was launched in December 2020, bringing back 1731 g of lunar soil samples. Through the detailed analysis of the samples, the scientists understand the history of late lunar volcanism, specifically extending lunar volcanism by about 800 million to 1 billion years, and proposed possible mechanisms. In addition, there are many new understandings of space weathering such as meteorite impacts and solar wind radiation on the Moon. China’s first Mars exploration mission Tianwen-1 was successfully launched in July 2021. Through the study of scientific data, a number of important scientific achievements have been made in the topography, water environment and shallow surface structure of Mars. This paper introduces the main scientific achievements of Chang’E-4, Chang’E-5 and Tianwen-1 in the past two years, excluding technical and engineering contents. Due to the large number of articles involved, this paper only introduces part of the results.

Keywords

• Lunar and deep space exploration of China
• Chang’E-4 mission
• Chang’E-5 mission
• Tianwen-1mission