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Five days after taking off on a heavy-duty Long March 5 rocket, China’s returning spacecraft Chang’e 5 went into orbit around the moon on Saturday, moving into position for a descent to the lunar surface in an attempt to collect samples. and bring them back to the earth.
The Chang’e 5 spacecraft fired its main engine at 1258 GMT (7:58 am EST) for a 17-minute burn to maneuver in an eight-hour elliptical orbit around the moon, according to the China National Space Administration.
The lunar orbit insertion maneuver concluded a five-day journey from Earth since the launch of Chang’e 5 on November 23.
The spacecraft was set to perform additional burns over the weekend to achieve a 120-mile (200-kilometer) circular orbit around the moon, setting the stage for the mission’s landing module separation for an automated descent to the lunar surface.
Chinese officials did not disclose when the Chang’e 5 lander will land on the moon, but the landing could take place as early as Sunday.
Chang’e 5 is attempting to return the first samples from the moon in 44 years. If successful, China would become the third country after the United States and the former Soviet Union to collect stones from the lunar surface and return them to Earth.
The mission lander will aim for a touchdown near Mons Rümker, a volcanic formation that extends more than 4,000 feet – or about 1,300 meters – above the surrounding lava plains.
The Chang’e 5 landing site is located in the Oceanus Procellarum, or Ocean of Storms, a region in the northern hemisphere of the near side of the moon. After landing, the Chang’e 5 surface mission will take place during a two-week daylight window at the landing site, allowing solar energy to power the spacecraft.
Chang’e 5 will extract up to 4.4 pounds, or 2 kilograms, of material from a depth of up to 6.6 feet, or 2 meters, below the surface. Then the specimens will return to the lunar orbit aboard a small rocket, meet with a return aircraft and make their way to Earth.
The return vector will re-enter the atmosphere at around 25,000 mph, or 40,000 kilometers per hour, significantly faster than reentry from low Earth orbit. The capsule will land around December 15 in China’s Inner Mongolia region, where teams will retrieve the lunar samples and transport the material to a laboratory for analysis.
Clive Neal, a lunar scientist at the University of Notre Dame, said China has shown that it can land on the moon with previous missions.
“But then they have to collect the sample,” Neal said in an interview shortly after the launch of Chang’e 5. “The interesting thing is that they launch themselves from the moon, enter the lunar orbit and then meet with the vehicle. return from Earth that will bring that champion back to Earth safely and without compromise. When the Soviets did so in 1976, the last time, he was headed to Earth. They launched themselves from the moon and returned directly to Earth. This has an extra part, which has to be fine for the champion to actually come back.
“But given the ability they have shown to do things for the first time, like landing and wandering on the other side, I expect things to be successful, and I hope they are,” Neal said in an interview with Spaceflight Now.
The sample return mission, if successful, will mark the first time lunar material has been returned to Earth since 1976, when the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 robotic mission reported about 170 grams, or 6 ounces, of samples from the lunar surface.
Nine missions returned lunar samples to Earth, including NASA’s six Apollo missions with astronauts and three Luna robotic spacecraft launched from the Soviet Union. NASA’s Apollo missions reported 842 pounds (382 kilograms) of rocks from the moon.
There is evidence that the rocks in the Chang’e 5 landing zone are much younger than those returned by the Apollo astronauts. These specimens are about 3.5 billion years old, created during a period of active volcanism in the first billion years of the moon’s existence.
The lava plains east of Mons Rümker appear to be less affected by asteroid impacts, suggesting that the rocks may be less than 2 billion years old. But models of the moon’s evolution suggest that its internal warming should have decreased by that time, making the volcanoes extinct, Neal said.
“It will be exciting to watch the age these champions return and their actual compositions as well,” said Neal.
Prior to Chang’e 5, China successfully sent four robotic explorers to the moon, starting with the orbiting Chang’e 1 and Chang’e 2 in 2007 and 2010. In 2013, China landed the Chang’e mission 3 to the moon with a mobile rover that crossed the lunar surface.
China’s most challenging lunar mission to date was Chang’e 4, which made its first ever soft landing on the opposite side of the moon in January 2019. Chang’e 4’s rover continues to operate, sending images and data through a dedicated relay the China satellite placed in a position beyond the far side of the moon to transmit signals between the Earth and the Chang’e 4 probe.
Chang’e missions are named after a moon goddess in Chinese folklore.
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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.
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