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Less than a week ago, we mentioned that China had launched its Chang’e 5 mission to the moon. The goal of the mission is to collect lunar samples and bring them back to Earth for study. China has announced that the spacecraft has now entered orbit around the moon.
The large spacecraft weighs over 18,000 pounds and was launched on Monday November 23 from China. The journey from Earth’s orbit to the moon lasted 112 hours, with it entering orbit around the moon on November 28. The Chinese space agency reported that the orbiter successfully turned on its main engine at 7:58 AM EST at a distance of 249 miles from the moon.
The spacecraft ran its engine for about 17 minutes to enter the lunar orbit. This allowed the spacecraft to slow down enough to be captured by the moon’s gravity. If the mission is successful, China will become the first country to attempt to bring samples back to Earth since 1976. The last sample return mission was conducted by the Soviet Union and was called Luna 24.
Only the United States and the Soviet Union have ever successfully returned samples from the moon. The US Apollo program has returned hundreds of pounds of samples from various missions. Chang’e 5 aims to bring back about two kilograms of stone and soil from regions other than those from which Russian and American samples were collected.
As Chang’e 5 traveled to the moon, radio enthusiasts were able to track the spacecraft and managed to decode some of the data sent to Earth. Interestingly, part of the data these enthusiasts decoded shows a video of the spacecraft’s solar panel glowing in the sun. It is not clear exactly when China intends to attempt to send the letter to the lunar surface, but it could happen as early as today, Sunday 29 November.
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