China launches Chang’e-5 mission to bring rocks back from the moon | China

China has launched a robotic spaceship to bring rocks back from the moon, a country’s first such attempt since the 1970s.

The Long March-5, China’s largest carrier rocket, took off Tuesday at 4.30am Beijing time from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on Hainan Island, carrying the Chang’e-5 probe.

The Chang’e-5 mission, named after the ancient Chinese moon goddess, will seek to collect lunar material to help scientists understand more about the moon’s origins and formation. The mission will test China’s ability to remotely acquire samples from space before more complex missions.

If successful, the mission would make China only the third country to have recovered lunar samples, joining the United States and the Soviet Union.

Entering the moon’s orbit, the spacecraft is intended to deploy a pair of vehicles on the lunar surface: a lander and an ascender. The landing should take place in about eight days, according to Pei Zhaoyu, a spokesman for the mission. The probe is expected to remain on the lunar surface for about two days and the entire mission is expected to last about 23 days.

The plan calls for the lander to drill through the lunar surface and collect soil and rocks using a robotic arm. This material would be transferred to the blocking vehicle, which would have to carry it off the surface and then dock with an orbiting module.

The samples would then be transferred to a return capsule for the journey to Earth, landing in the Inner Mongolia region of China.

“The biggest challenges … are the sampling work on the lunar surface, the takeoff from the lunar surface, the rendezvous and docking in the lunar orbit, as well as the high-speed reentry to Earth,” said Pei, who is also director of the Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center at China National Space Administration.

“We can conduct sampling through circumlunar exploration and moon landing, but it’s more intuitive to get samples to conduct scientific research – the method is more straightforward,” added Pei. “Also, there will be more tools and more methods to study them on Earth.”