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BEIJING, Dec 3 (Reuters) – Chinese robotic vehicle Chang’e-5 finished collecting stone and soil samples from the Moon a day earlier than expected in the first mission of its kind for a nation since the 1970s the Asian giant’s space agency said Thursday.
The “rover” has saved the samples and will now dock with the orbital probe to begin its return to Earth.
China launched the robotic probe on November 24 to collect rock and soil samples from the moon, a mission that no country in the world has undertaken since 1976.
On Tuesday night, the Chang’e-5 spacecraft successfully deployed a pair of vehicles for landing and moon ascent to the satellite’s surface. The plan was to collect 2 kilograms of samples.
The collection of stone and soil samples ended after 19 hours, the Chinese space agency said in a statement, without disclosing the total weight.
China had planned to collect the samples for a period of about two days and that the entire mission would last 23 days.
The ascent vehicle will lift off the lunar surface with the samples and dock with a module currently orbiting the Moon. The samples will then be transferred to the return capsule aboard the orbital module to be sent to Earth.
If successful, the mission will make China the third country to have recovered lunar samples, after the United States and the Soviet Union.
China made its first moon landing in 2013.
In January 2019, the Chang’e-4 rover landed on the dark side of the moon, the first spacecraft from any nation to do so.
Reported by Liangping Gao and Ryan Woo. Edited by Marion Giraldo in Spanish
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