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The capsule was detached from the orbital module and was designed to hit the Earth’s atmosphere, with the aim of losing speed, before entering and floating with a parachute towards the ground.
Two of the four “Chang’e-5” modules landed on the moon in early December and collected around two kilograms of samples, including collections on the surface and two meters deep in the lunar crust.
The samples were deposited in a sealed container that was carried by a vehicle back to the return module.
The mission was the latest advancement of China’s space program, which includes a mission to Mars and plans to build a space station.
In a statement read from the Beijing Aerospace Control Center, Chinese President Xi Jinping called the mission a great achievement and a step forward for China’s space industry, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported.
The team prepared helicopters and vehicles to identify the signals emitted by the lunar spacecraft and to be able to locate the capsule in the darkness surrounding the vast snowy region in the far north of China.
This was the first time that scientists obtained samples of lunar rocks from a mission sent by the former Soviet Union (USSR) in 1976.
The rocks now collected are expected to be billions of years more recent than previously obtained by the United States and the former USSR, providing new discoveries about the history of the Moon and other celestial bodies.
The rocks come from a part of the moon known as Oceanus Procellarum, near a place called Mons Rumker, which is believed to have been volcanic in the past.
The “Chang’e-5” took off from a launch base in southern China’s Hainão province on November 24. It was China’s third successful lunar landing and the only one to take off from the moon again.
