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After a 23-day mission, China’s Chang’e-5 probe returned to Earth with the latest lunar soil samples and landed safely in the Siziwang Banner area of Inner Mongolia at 1:59 am local time. The Chinese team stated that it will share lunar samples with the world scientific community.
Following the successful soft landing of the Chang’e 4 probe on the back of the moon early last year, China became the third country in the world to drop a lunar rover on the lunar surface. Now the Chang’e 5 probe has also successfully completed its mission. Two kilograms of lunar soil returned to Earth.
Since Chang’e-5 enters the Earth’s atmosphere at the second speed of the universe (that is, the escape velocity of Earth’s gravity), it is very fast (much faster than the space capsule returning from the International Space Station ) and it is impossible to land directly on the surface at this speed. The equipment will also overheat and burn under high speed friction with the atmosphere.
Therefore, at 12:33 p.m. EST on December 16 (1:33 a.m. on December 17, China time), the Chang’e-5 orbiter-returner combination performed a semi-ballistic jump over the Arabian Sea and made the first aerodynamic jump. Deceleration: The retractor first jumps out of the atmosphere and then slides down after reaching the highest point. After entering the atmosphere again, it performs a second aerodynamic deceleration. When descending to a height of about 10 kilometers above the ground, the retractor opens the parachute to complete the final deceleration and maintain a stable attitude. Then it landed softly in the predetermined area.
The schematic diagram of the flight path of the Chang’e 5 is as follows.
The China National Space Administration has found # ChangE5!!!
Follow the live stream👉 https://t.co/jhbg3GS35C https://t.co/Hep9AEyJCT
– ESA Operations (@esaoperations) December 16, 2020
In the past, NASA’s Apollo command and service module (Apollo command and service module) also used the same technology to return to Earth, while the new Orion spacecraft (Orion spacecraft) used a return technology. more complex multi-ballistic.
As for the lunar soil samples brought back by Chang’e 5 this time around, they can be clearly compared to the rock samples brought back by the United States and the Soviet Union more than 40 years ago. The first landed on Mount Rümker (Mons Rümker). The age of the rocks in this area is relatively young and will not exceed 1.2 to 1.3 billion years old, but the rock samples sampled by the latter are more than 3 billion years old, so the comparison between the two should provide more information on the internal structure of the moon.
The resources of outer space are the common wealth of all humanity. The Chinese government has expressed its willingness to share lunar samples, including survey data, with organizations and scientists with the common goal of scientific analysis.
China’s space power is progressing by leaps and bounds. The next Chang’e-6 is expected to land at the Lunar South Pole / South Pole Basin-Aitken in 2023 or 2024.
(Source of the first image: shutterstock)
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