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China Makes History Again: Chang'e-6 Returns with Groundbreaking Moon Samples

In a remarkable achievement, China has successfully collected samples from the far side of the moon, marking a significant milestone in space exploration. The Chang'e-6 mission, launched on May 3, touched down in the Apollo crater within the vast South Pole-Aitken basin on June 1. During its brief but productive stay, the spacecraft gathered approximately 2 kilograms of lunar material using a scoop and drill. The samples, now stored in an ascent vehicle, are expected to return to Earth on June 25, landing in Inner Mongolia. This historic achievement not only demonstrates China's space program prowess but also provides scientists with a unique opportunity to unravel the mysteries of the moon's formation and evolution.   Achievements: - *First-ever samples from the far side*: Chang'e-6 successfully collects lunar material from the moon's less-explored hemisphere. - *Second successful farside landing*: China builds on its 2019 achievement with...
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The James Webb Space Telescope is now fully deployed.

The $10 billion NASA observatory unfolded the second "wing" of its massive primary mirror today (Jan. 8), bringing the light-collecting structure up to its full size and marking the end of the mission's long, risky and ultra-complex deployment phase. 

As the final mirror segment folded in place just before 10:30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT). Just under three hours later, at 1:17 p.m. EST (1817 GMT), the mirror was locked into place as cheers and high-fives erupted at its mission control center in Baltimore, Maryland.<> <


After Webb launched into space on Dec. 25, the normally clean-shaven Zurbuchen pledged not to shave until its hair-raising deployment was complete. 

"I fully expect to shave today," Zurbuchen said. 

The mission team, for their part, seemed to ease the tension of today's final deployment by piping in music to their mission operations center in the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. Among their music selections was "Ring My Bell" by Anita Ward as the mirror wing first folded into place.

"I just feel this kind of glow, you know, in my chest right now just seeing that mirror deployed all together," said NASA astrophysicist Michelle Thaller, who hosted the agency's live Webb mirror deployment webcast. The mirror's size will give Webb and humanity "a chance to see the universe as it was perhaps only a 100 million years after the start of the Big Bang."



Today, NASA achieved another engineering milestone decades in the making!" NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement on Twitter. "While the journey is not complete, I join the Webb team in breathing a little easier and imagining the future breakthroughs bound to inspire the world."

Webb is optimized to view the cosmos in infrared light, wavelengths that we feel as heat. The telescope's optics and instruments must be kept extremely cold to pick up these faint heat signatures, so Webb sports a five-layer sunshield the size of a tennis court to reflect and radiate away solar energy.

The fully extended sunshield is far too big to fit in the protective payload fairing of any currently operational rocket, so the structure launched in a highly compact configuration. So did Webb's 21.3-foot-wide (6.5 meters) primary mirror, which consists of 18 gold-plated hexagonal segments arrayed across a central post and two side wings.

Webb's deployment phase was therefore incredibly involved. 

"The Webb observatory has 50 major deployments … and 178 release mechanisms to deploy those 50 parts," Webb Mission Systems Engineer Mike Menzel, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in an explainer video called "29 Days on the Edge" that the agency posted in October. 

"Every single one of them must work," Menzel said. "Unfolding Webb is hands-down the most complicated spacecraft activity we’ve ever done." 

Congratulations, @NASAWebb! You are fully deployed! 🥳Stay tuned over the coming months as the space telescope reaches its destination of Lagrange point 2 and prepares to #UnfoldTheUniverse.
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