CHINA announced the cooperation plan for its future Chang’e-6 mission, offering to carry a total of 20 kg of solicited payloads, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA) on Thursday.

The orbiter and lander of the Chang’e-6 mission will each reserve 10 kg for payloads, which will be selected from domestic colleges, universities and private enterprises and foreign scientific research institutions, said Liu Jizhong, director of the China Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center of the CNSA, at a press conference.

China is expected to launch the Chang’e-5 probe by the end of this year to bring moon samples back to Earth.

As the backup of the Chang’e-5 mission, the Chang’e-6 mission will also collect lunar samples automatically for comprehensive analysis and research, Liu said.

Its launch time and landing site will depend on the performance of the Chang’e-5 mission, he explained.

According to Liu, the Chang’e-6 probe will comprise an orbiter, a lander, an ascender and a return capsule.

It will enter the Earth-moon transfer orbit, slow near the moon to enter the lunar orbit and descend and land on a preset area on the moon.

After collecting lunar samples, the ascender will rise from the lunar surface for rendezvous and docking with the orbiter flying around the moon. Then the return capsule will fly back to Earth via the moon-Earth transfer orbit, reenter the atmosphere, land and be retrieved.

The administration Wednesday also said the country will promote aerospace development, strengthen international cooperation and contribute Chinese wisdom, plans and strength to man’s peaceful utilization of outer space.

China successfully sent an ocean-observing satellite into space in October of 2018, a joint mission pursued under close Sino-French space cooperation that enabled scientists for the first time to simultaneously study oceans, surface winds and waves.

China’s Chang’e-4 mission, which made the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the moon earlier this year, embodies China’s hope to combine wisdom in space exploration, with four payloads developed by the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Saudi Arabia.

In February 2018, a seismic-electromagnetic satellite, jointly developed by China and Italy, was launched to study seismic precursors, which might help establish a ground-space earthquake monitoring and forecasting network. (Xinhua)