In a groundbreaking achievement, China’s Chang’e-6 lunar mission has successfully captured a “selfie” on the moon’s far side, thanks to an innovative, AI-powered mini-rover.
The AI-powered mini-rover, weighing 11 pounds (5 kg) and referred to as an autonomous intelligent mini-robot, employed sophisticated AI software to navigate the lunar terrain and determine the optimal angle for the photograph. The primary goals of this mini-rover were to capture “selfies” and to validate autonomous intelligent technologies. Following the successful collection of lunar samples, the rover snapped the historic image, as the state-owned China Space Daily reported.
Developed by the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), the rover boasts advanced autonomous capabilities and highly integrated, lightweight hardware. According to Quentin Parker, an astrophysicist from the University of Hong Kong, “This could be the first instance of AI being employed on a lunar rover if it was autonomously making choices based on input from cameras.” He noted that other systems on various Chang’e spacecraft and recent lunar probes from other countries might have also utilized AI.
Harvard astronomer Jonathan McDowell commented that the term “AI” might be considered “rather meaningless” in this context but acknowledged the CAST software team’s capabilities in programming complex activities into a very small spacecraft. Despite varying opinions, scientists regard the rover’s ability to make autonomous decisions based on input data from cameras as a significant leap in space technology.
Chang’e-6 has been heralded as a critical mission for updating China’s lunar scientific data. It focuses on the structure, composition, and physical properties of lunar soil. It is the first mission to successfully retrieve rock samples from the far side of the moon, a region that perpetually faces away from Earth due to tidal locking.
The far side of the moon is characterized by numerous craters and limited volcanic activity, posing significant communication challenges for scientists on Earth. China developed the Queqiao relay satellite system to address this, which facilitates communication with spacecraft in this remote region. On June 1, at 10:23 PM GMT, Chang’e-6 made a successful landing in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, a large crater on the moon’s far side.
This mission marks China’s second successful sample return, following Chang’e-5’s retrieval from the near side in 2020. The selfie underscores the rover’s capabilities with a significant step towards China’s broader lunar ambitions, which include sending humans to the moon by 2030 and establishing a rudimentary lunar base by 2028.