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WENCHANG, Hainan, Nov. 24 – China on Tuesday launched a spacecraft to collect and return samples from the moon, the country’s first attempt to retrieve samples from an extraterrestrial body.
A Long March-5 rocket, carrying the Chang’e-5 spacecraft, lifted off from the Wenchang spacecraft launch site off the coast of the southern province of Hainan Island at 4:30 am (Beijing time). ).
Chang’e-5 is one of the most complicated and challenging missions in China’s aerospace history, as well as the world’s first lunar sampling mission in more than 40 years.
The mission will help promote the development of China’s science and technology, and will lay an important foundation for China’s future manned lunar landing and deep space exploration, said Pei Zhaoyu, deputy director of the Center for Lunar Exploration and Space Program of the National Space Administration of China.
The Chang’e-5, comprising an orbiter, lander, ascendant, and return, with a total takeoff mass of 8.2 tons, is expected to achieve an unmanned rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit, an unprecedented feat.
After entering lunar orbit, the combination of landing and ascending will separate from the combination of orbiter and return.
While the orbiter-returner orbits about 200 km above the lunar surface, the lander-ascendant will land in the northwestern region of Oceanus Procellarum, also known as the Ocean of Storms, on the near side of the moon in early January. December.
In 48 hours, a robotic arm will be extended to collect rocks and regoliths on the lunar surface, and a drill will pierce the ground. About 2 kg of samples are expected to be collected and sealed in a container on the spacecraft.
The ascendant will then lift off and dock with the orbiter-returner in orbit. Once the samples are transferred to the returner, the ascendant will separate from the orbiter-returner.
When the geometric relationship between the Earth and the Moon is adequate, the orbiter will take the returner back to Earth. Whoever returns will re-enter the atmosphere and land on the Siziwang Banner in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of northern China.
The whole flight will last more than 20 days.
Pei said that if the Chang’e-5 mission is successful, China’s current lunar exploration project will come to a successful conclusion.
Named after the legendary Chinese moon goddess Chang’e, China’s current three-step lunar exploration program, which began in 2004, includes orbiting and landing on the moon, and bringing in samples.
Through the program, China has acquired basic unmanned lunar exploration technologies with limited investment, Pei said.
China is making plans for future lunar exploration. To pave the way for manned lunar exploration and deep space exploration, the Chang’e-5 mission will use a different sampling method than the United States and the Soviet Union, Pei said.
The United States sent astronauts to the moon to collect samples. In the unmanned lunar sampling missions of the Soviet Union, the spacecraft took off from the moon and returned to Earth directly.
But China chose a complicated technological approach that included unmanned gatherings and docking in lunar orbit, which could bring in more samples and lay the technological foundation for manned lunar missions, Pei said.
“Unmanned rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit will be a historic first. It will be very difficult,” said Peng Jing, deputy chief designer of the Chang’e-5 probe at the China Academy of Space Technology under Science and Technology. China Aerospace Technology. Corporation.
“We could call it a historic mission. Its success will help us acquire the basic capabilities for future deep space exploration, such as sampling and taking off from Mars, asteroids and other celestial bodies,” Peng said.
The scientific objectives of the Chang’e-5 mission include the investigation of the landing area to obtain the in situ analysis data related to the lunar samples, as well as the systematic and long-term laboratory analysis of the lunar samples.
Chang’e-5’s landing site will be west of Chang’e-3, which went to the moon in 2013.
This site was chosen because the region has a young geological age, younger than the sample areas of the United States and the Soviet Union more than 40 years ago. This region has never been sampled. The new samples will be of great scientific value, experts said.
“National and foreign scientists will have the opportunity to obtain the lunar samples that Chang’e-5 will bring for research,” Pei added.
