A Chinese spacecraft departed from the moon on Thursday, leaving a trail of its journey on the lunar surface.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chuying tweeted images of the nation’s flag hoisted on the moon, wishing the Changa 5 a safe passage.
Chang’e 5’s unmanned mission was the latest in a series that included a Chinese lunar research program. Departing with a load of lunar rocks, the mission was the first attempt by a spacecraft to return lunar samples as the Soviet Union did in the 1970s.
NASA Associate Administrator Thomas Zurbuchen congratulated China on its landing which took place on Tuesday.
Zubuchen tweeted, “Congratulations to China on the successful landing of Chang’e 5.”
China Moon is preparing to return rock samples to Earth
The tweet continued: “This is no easy task. When the specimens collected on the moon have returned to Earth, we hope that everyone will benefit from studying this precious cargo moving the international science community forward.”
NASA tweeted in November that it hopes to share data with the global scientific community to increase insights about China, like our Apollo mission. [sic] Artemis will program. “
The Chang5’s return module will touch the grasslands of Inner Mongolia in mid-December, where they made a return after the Chinese-operated Shenzhou spacecraft first launched into space in 2003. China is only the third country to put a human in space following Russia and the United States.
Since the Changa 5 mission, China has revived discussions of sending a crew mission to the moon and possibly building a scientific base there, although no timeline has been set for such projects.
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China also launched its first temporary orbital laboratory in 2011 and the second in 2016.
While China is expanding cooperation with the European Space Agency and others, its interaction with NASA is severely limited by concerns about the secret nature of the Chinese space program and its links to the country’s military.
The Associated Press contributes to this report.
