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Image source,CNSA
Artwork: The mission plan will collect 2 kilograms of material from the lunar surface.
According to a report by China Central Television, at 4:53 a.m. on December 2 Beijing time, the China Chang’e 5 Lunar Exploration Project Landing and Ascent Module completed the sampling and packing work of the moon drilling, and is currently sampling and sampling as planned. .
Chang’e 5 successfully landed on the lunar surface at approximately 11 p.m. on December 1. BBC Science reporter Jonathan Amos (Jonathan Amos) explained to us the intermediate steps and the importance of this task.
The objective of this Chang’e-5 mission is to bring the rocks and dust from the moon back to Earth for analysis.
Chang’e 5’s landing objective is to approach the near-ground position of the high Mons Rümker volcano in the Oceanus Procellarum (Oceanus Procellarum).
In the next two days, the lander is expected to survey its surroundings and collect materials on the lunar surface.
To carry out this task, the Chang’e-5 is equipped with a camera, spectrometer, radar, a mechanical digging arm for surface sampling, and a drilling tool for drilling sampling.
The lander plans to seal and encapsulate the 2 kg of lunar soil, and then meet and dock with the orbiter and returner assembly, and deliver the samples to the returner to return to Earth.
The last time humans completed this task was 44 years ago. At that time, the Soviet Lunar 24 probe only brought back less than 200 grams of samples from the moon.
Image source,CNSA
The probe cast a shadow on the surface of the moon.
Unlike the launch mission a week ago, the landing mission was not broadcast live on Chinese television channels.
The Chinese media only reported it immediately after the successful landing was confirmed.
Images taken during the landing were quickly made public, with the last frame showing one of the probe’s legs casting a shadow on the dusty lunar surface.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) congratulated China. Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, the agency’s highest-level scientific officer, said he hopes the international research community will finally have a chance to analyze any samples brought to Earth.
“When the samples are collected from the moon and sent back to earth, we hope that everyone can benefit and study this precious cargo, which can promote the progress of the international scientific community,” he said on Twitter.
On November 24, China launched the 8.2-ton Chang’e-5 probe at the Wenchang space launch site in Hainan. Chang’e-5 reached the moon above the moon last weekend, then entered lunar orbit and separated into two parts.
Red indicates the site of the Chang’e-5 sampling mission. Yellow represents the Apollo mission sampling location.
The part made up of the orbiter and the returner remains in lunar orbit, while the part made up of the lander and the ascendant is ready to land on the lunar surface.
According to the China Space Administration, the lander and ascendant combination landed on the moon at 11:11 p.m. on December 1. The specific position was reported to be 51.8 degrees west longitude and 43.1 degrees north latitude.
Before the Chang’e 5 moon landing, China had already conducted two moon landing missions, namely Chang’e 3 in 2013 and Chang’e 4 last year. Both missions are equipped with a static lander and a tank.
Lunar rock and soil samples brought to Earth by American astronauts from Apollo and the Soviet Union’s unmanned lunar project weighed less than 400 grams, and most of the materials were brought back by manned missions.
But these samples are very old, with a history of more than 3 billion years. The Mount Rumke affair is said to be no more than 1.2 billion or 1.3 billion years old. This will provide us with more information about the geological history of the moon.
Image source,CNSA
Another image taken by the camera during the landing of Chang’e-5.
These samples will also provide another data carrier for scientists to determine the time of events in the solar system.
Researchers will accomplish this by counting craters: the more craters, the older the surface. But it depends on deterministic dating of a number of locations, and samples from the Apollo and Soviet projects played a key role in this in the past. Chang’e-5 can provide more data points.
Image source,CNSA
China has already sent two static landers and Yutu vehicles to the moon.
Reports from China indicate that the lunar surface sample recovery work will not exceed two days. All returned material will be ignited by the landing complex’s ascendant and returned to lunar orbit, from where it will be transferred to the return complex.
The orbiter will bring the return set close to Earth, after which the orbiter will be discarded and the returning one will enter the atmosphere and land at Siziwang Banner, Inner Mongolia. Astronauts who returned to Earth from China also landed here.
“Chang’e-5 is a very complex mission,” said Dr. James Carpenter, scientific coordinator for human and robotic exploration at the European Space Agency.
“I think what they want to do is extremely impressive. I think what draws people’s attention is that from Chang’e’s first mission to the most recent one, you can see this very systematic, step-by-step way of increasing its Space Exploration Capabilities “.
China launches Chang’e-5 probe to fly to the moon and take samples of rocky soil
