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China just landed a new robotic spacecraft on the moon.
The Chang’e 5 mission is tasked with returning a stash of lunar rocks to Earth.
If successful, it will be the first mission from any country to bring back lunar samples from the Apollo and Russian missions in the 1960s and 1970s.
“This is a very complex mission that demonstrates a lot of technological capabilities and is a step into the future,” said Andrew Jones, a space journalist who follows the Chinese space program.
The 23-day mission started last week and plans to return to Earth around December 15th.
The mission will not only help scientists understand how the Moon formed, but it will also test the technology for future missions to the Moon and Mars.
Here are five things you need to know.
Can we see where it landed from Earth?
You can’t see the spacecraft, but you can see the part of the moon where it landed.
Chang’e 5 landed on a part of the Moon known as Mons Rümker, a 70 kilometer wide and 500 meter high dome of volcanic rock in the Oceanus Procellarum, also known as the Ocean of Storms (the vast gray area on the right side of the Moon when viewed from the southern hemisphere of the Earth).
At around 1.2 billion years old, this is considered to be one of the last places on the Moon to be volcanically active.
It is the first time that a spacecraft tasked with bringing back the rocks has landed in this area.
Why does China want to bring back the moon rocks?
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For starters, they would be the third nation to bring rocks back from the moon.
But it’s also a mission of great scientific value, said Jonti Horner, an astronomer at the University of South Queensland.
The United States and Russia have brought back a swag of moon rocks, but they are much older – about 3.2 billion years.
Stuffing rocks from this location will help scientists date the Moon more accurately.
We currently date the surface of the Moon based on the number and density of craters in the area and moon rocks from the missions we already have.
“If we get the rocks back [from this location] we can date them. This allows you to confirm that the history [of the Moon] based on the craters it really works, ”Professor Horner said.
“It also allows you to look at the clock with which the Moon has ceased to be a [volcanically] active body “.
Understanding when the Moon has stopped being active gives scientists a better idea of the evolution and potential of life not only in our solar system, but also in alien systems.
So how are they planning to get the rocks back?
There are a number of very complicated steps.
Just landing on the moon is a feat in itself (recent missions from Israel and India have failed) but, what’s more, there are still many challenges.
The solar-powered lander only has 14 Earth days of sunlight to work with, but it’s already been five days, so it has to be fast.
Over the next 48 hours, the lander will pick up dirt from the surface with a robotic arm, drill up to 2 meters below the surface and place the samples in an ascent vehicle.
The solar-powered ascent vehicle must then jump off the top of the lander.
“Then the [ascent vehicle] it must meet and dock with the rest of the spacecraft, which orbits the Moon. ”
They have completed this maneuver in low Earth orbit with other missions, but the Moon is much further away.
Once the ascent vehicle docks and the rocks are transferred to the return pod, the ascent vehicle is thrown overboard.
Then the return journey begins.
The final challenge will be to land the return module, which will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere traveling at speeds of up to 11 km per second.
To slow it down, it will bounce off the top of Earth’s atmosphere a couple of times before parachuting to land in Mongolia, a maneuver tested in 2014 at a much slower speed using a spacecraft launched into low Earth orbit.
It sounds complex. Is it just about bringing back the space rocks?
No. The mission is testing technologies that will be useful for future missions to the Moon and Mars.
“They are taking this complex approach because they are looking to much more ambitious goals much further,” Jones said.
The technology used in this mission for functions such as navigation, landing, docking in space, and returning from Earth could not only help with future champion return missions, but manned missions as well.
China has said it wants to send humans to the moon and have a permanent base there by the end of the decade.
He also has eyes on Mars – literally. There is currently a spaceship flying to the Red Planet, with the aim of landing in May next year. If successful, it will be the third nation to have robots on Mars.
They hope to bring back material from Mars by 2030.
What does this mean for the space race if they succeed?
China is the only nation to have successfully landed spacecraft on the moon since Russia’s Luna 24 mission in 1976.
Chang’e 5 is the third Chinese mission to land on the moon.
Following is Chang’e 3, which landed in 2013 with its rover and is still going strong, and last year’s landing of Chang’e 4 and its Yutu-2 rover on the far side of the moon.
There is also a satellite and orbiter hovering above the Moon which brings the total number of Chinese robots on or around the Moon to seven.
“The Chinese are showing that they can use the resources to conduct some serious lunar exploration,” Jones said.
If this mission is successful, the Chinese plan to send the next missions, Chang’e 6 and Chang’e 7, to the Moon’s South Pole from 2023 onwards.
Many countries, including the United States, have had their sights set on this region since evidence of water ice was found in the shadowed craters and now in the sunlit portion of the moon.
But Mr. Jones says the Chang’e missions, named after a Chinese moon goddess, were planned in the early 2000s, long before these discoveries were made.
“This is definitely a new era of lunar exploration and there are many interesting questions such as whether the resources can be used, but this actual phase of lunar exploration from China is, in a sense, a little older.”
Meanwhile, the US plans to bring astronauts back to the moon in 2024 and a permanent base at the South Pole by the end of the decade.
“Russia and the European Space Agency also want to do things on Moon, but they are far behind in terms of realizing these plans,” Jones said.
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