France's first-ever lunar landing project was made possible by China.
China's Chang'e-6 lunar probe is ready to be launched on May 3 by a large Long March 5 rocket, and you can see that there are four symbols on the rocket fairing, the top is the China Space Agency, and there are three small signs below, the first is the French Center for Space Research.
(Long March 5 Yao-8 fairing, inside is Chang'e-6.) Source: Sky Mirror on the Clouds)
The total weight of Chang'e-6 reached 8.2 tons, which is heavier than the Shenzhou spacecraft. We shared 25 kilograms of the payload with France, and asked them to bring a little bit of their own equipment and go to the moon together.
This can make the United States angry, NASA director has been a conspicuous bag in the past few days, hyping up space competition with China, France obviously said that it would go to the moon with the American Artemis program, why did it get into the Chinese's car first?
The Chang'e-6 probe not only represents the first time that all mankind has gone to the far side of the moon to dig and return, but also represents the first French space mission to the moon, which many people did not expect.
(Chang'e-6 was also France's first moon landing)
As the five permanent members of the Security Council, the United States and the Soviet Union have already landed probes on the moon, and China's Chang'e project has also been successful...... Ahem, didn't India, under the Commonwealth, successfully soft land Chandrayaan-3 last year, and rounding it up is also good for the United Kingdom - just kidding, in fact, in November 2004, ESA's first lunar probe Smart-1 successfully entered the lunar orbit, and the scientific instruments on it are mainly an X-ray spectrometer, which was developed by the United Kingdom.
In this way, France is the only one left among the five good people, and it has never engaged in a lunar exploration project.
(French instrument on Chang'e-6)
However, this time, the Chang'e-6 probe was equipped with a radon gas detector developed by France for the first time. This is the first time that France has carried out lunar research, and it has finally caught up with the gap with Britain and returned to the same starting line, do you know how happy the French are?
In March 2019, China and France signed a proposal, confirming for the first time to the world that France will participate in the Chang'e-6 mission between 2023 and 2024. Jean-Yves Le Garre, then president of the French National Center for Space Research, was so excited that he loudly announced on the Internet at the time: "France is really going to conduct lunar scientific research, we have never done it before, this is a great first time!"
(China and France signed the Chang'e-6 cooperation agreement)
This old brother also praised China fiercely, saying that China's aerospace is very good and has unlimited potential, and that France has become the country that cooperates with China the most in space.
What he said is actually right, France established diplomatic relations with New China as early as 1964, and was the first Western power to formally establish diplomatic relations with New China. In recent years, there has indeed been a lot of space cooperation between the two sides.
In 2018, China successfully launched the Sino-French Ocean Satellite in Jiuquan, which is very advanced and can conduct high-precision observation of global ocean surface wind and waves.
(The data map of the Sino-French Oceanographic Satellite has been shared with the world)
Because France has advantages in geophysical and oceanographic research technology, we have also learned a lot, and this satellite has also become an important part of the continental ocean satellite observation system, and France has also gained a lot. The Sino-French oceanographic satellite is entirely the result of complementary advantages and equal cooperation between the two sides, and can be said to be a model of space cooperation between major countries.
Therefore, this Chang'e-6 mission, there is a very good foundation for the in-depth cooperation between the two sides again.
In fact, Chang'e-6 looks almost exactly the same as Chang'e-5, because Chang'e-5 was originally a backup of No. 5, and at that time we thought about going to the moon for the first time to dig soil and bring it back, the process was more complicated, and we were worried that there was a risk of failure, so Chang'e-5 directly built two and took one as a backup. As a result, the Chang'e-5 mission was extremely successful, bringing back 1,731 grams of samples from the moon.
(Chang'e-5 and Chang'e-6 are twins)
Then Chang'e 6 doesn't need to be a spare tire, it is directly turned positive, and it is given a new task: since your fifth brother has already gone to the front of the moon to dig soil, then the sixth son, you can go to the back side of the moon to dig a soil and open the eyes of the earthlings.
Although Chang'e-6 is the first time that humans have gone to the far side of the moon to dig in the soil, and the risk is not small, our Chang'e-4 has represented the first soft landing and patrol survey on the far side of the moon, and the foundation is still very solid.
In addition to the equipment of the French, Chang'e-6 is also equipped with ESA's lunar surface negative ion analyzer, Italy's laser angle reflector, and Pakistan's CubeSat.
(The structure of Chang'e-6, the international payload is only a small part of it)
Technically speaking, their equipment actually has no technical content, and it has long been available in our country. Leave it to them to do it, just to free up a little space, like "I scored 81 points with Kobe", and let them take a ride to the moon.
Of course, they don't have to pay for it, and the results of their research have to be shared with us.
In fact, Chang'e-4 has engaged in an international cooperation, including a neutral atom analyzer developed in cooperation with Sweden, a small optical imaging detector developed by King Durre's Science and Technology City in Saudi Arabia, and a lunar surface neutron radiation dose detector developed by Gil University in Germany.
At that time, the cooperation with Saudi Arabia was also very pleasant, both sides felt that they took advantage of it, and our reputation also went out, and later the UAE and other big players also wanted to join, of course we welcomed it very much.
(The mainland aerospace has always been open to international cooperation)
But for the in-depth cooperation between Europe and China's aerospace, I read fan comments, in fact, many friends are worried. There are two main aspects:
First, France not only cooperates with China in lunar exploration, but also joins the US lunar landing program.
In June 2022, France officially signed the Artemis Accords of NASA, becoming the 20th member of the so-called "return to the moon" program of the United States. The Artemis program proposed by the Trump administration in 2020 is essentially to create a "lunar NATO" to exclude China and Russia, but at that time, France and Germany, as the leaders of the European Space Agency, expressed skepticism and did not join in the first place.
(33 countries are already participating in the Artemis program)
However, under the coercion and inducement of the United States, France finally joined in 2022, and Germany also signed an agreement in 2023, becoming the 29th member state.
The second destabilizing factor is that European space has once cheated us.
In 2003, the European Union invited China to join the development of the Galileo global positioning and navigation system, when our Beidou system was just starting, and we also wanted to learn it in an open and cooperative attitude. As a result, the mainland signed a cooperation agreement with Europe in 2004 and invested $240 million. But just a year later, Europe kicked China out of the group chat.
The failure of that cooperation made us learn from the pain and make up our minds to accelerate the development of our own Beidou global positioning system.
Everyone should also see that the biggest obstacle to space cooperation between Europe and China is actually the United States.
Long March 5 rocket
The reason why the United States wants to engage in lunar NATO or Cold War confrontation is because they think they have won the Soviet Union with that system. The United States has been leading the space industry for a long time, and it is a symbol of their cultural export to the world and a tool for harvesting wealth, but they never expected that the development of China's aerospace industry is beyond their understanding.
Chang'e-6 went to the far side of the moon to dig in the soil, which has forced the NASA administrator to talk nonsense, because the American elites have realized that no matter how they blockade, we can realize our plans step by step. This has directly led to the fall of the image of the United States in the world of astronautics.
NASA Administrator actually said that "the far side of the moon is always on the dark side", lacking scientific literacy
What they are even more afraid of is that a country that does not engage in space hegemony at all will not only be able to land people on the moon in 2030 and initially establish an international scientific research station at the south pole of the moon in 2035, but also lead other countries to develop lunar resources from the perspective of equality, mutual benefit and win-win cooperation.
Whether on the earth or on the moon, everyone can stand together and earn money, and there is no longer a need to kneel before the West. This is what we can give, but the United States cannot give.
(Mainland-led International Lunar Research Station)
Times are different, the situation has changed too quickly in the past two years, and the boomerang has hit the United States one after another. The essence of this is that the supercontinent economic cooperation model supported by China's industrial system is completely different from the financial harvesting model dominated by the Cold War confrontation of the United States, which has given many countries new hope.
Don't look at the fact that they are still succumbing to US pressure on the surface, but in fact they are holding their breath. The villagers of the global village have found that they can live a good life without bowing to the bullies, which is something that directly shakes the foundation of the superpower.
A small Chang'e-6 may have inadvertently moved the direction of the earth's pattern.
(Looking forward to the complete success of Chang'e-6)