China becomes the second nation to plant the flag on the moon during the space mission

China has become only the second country in the world to plant its flag on the moon, 50 years after the Americans first did so.

The county spacecraft, named Chang’e 5, unfurled the flag as it rose from the moon Thursday night, carrying lunar rocks that will be returned to Earth.

It is the third Chinese spacecraft to land on the moon and the first to take off from it as the country carries out a series of increasingly ambitious space missions.

The United States planted the first flag on the moon during the manned Apollo 11 mission in 1969. Five more US flags were planted on the moon’s surface during subsequent missions up to 1972.

Chang’e 5 landed on Tuesday on the Sea of ​​Storms on the near side of the moon. Its mission was to collect about two kilograms of moon rocks and bring them back to Earth, the first return of samples since Soviet spaceships did so in the 1970s.

The ascent vehicle took off from the moon shortly after 11 p.m. Beijing time on Thursday and was supposed to meet with a vehicle returning to lunar orbit, then transfer the samples to a capsule. The lunar rocks and debris have been sealed inside a special container to prevent contamination.

After the transfer, the ascent module will be ejected and the capsule will remain in lunar orbit for about a week, waiting for the optimal time to make the journey back to Earth.

Chinese officials said the capsule with the samples is expected to land on Earth around the middle of the month. The touchdown is scheduled for the Inner Mongolian grasslands.

The Chang’e 5 lander, which remained on the moon, was able to collect samples from the surface and drill two meters. It is hoped that it has collected moon rocks billions of years younger than previously recovered.

The lander was also equipped to extensively photograph the area, map sub-surface conditions with ground-penetrating radar, and analyze the lunar soil for minerals and water content.

Chang’e 5, named after the mythical Chinese goddess of the moon, revived talks about China that one day sent astronauts to the moon and possibly built a scientific basis there, although no timeline has been proposed for such projects.

China launched its first temporary orbiting laboratory in 2011 and a second in 2016. Plans call for a permanent space station after 2022, possibly to be assisted by a reusable space plane.

While China is stepping up cooperation with the European Space Agency and others, interactions with NASA are severely limited by US concerns about the covert nature and close military ties of the Chinese program.

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