China launches mission to bring back material from the moon

The launch was broadcast live on national broadcaster CCTV, which then switched to computer animation to showcase its progress in space.

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The typically secretive administration had previously only confirmed that the launch would be in late November. Spacecraft typically take three days to reach the moon.

The mission’s key task is to drill 2 meters below the moon’s surface and collect about 2 kilograms of rocks and other debris to return to Earth, according to NASA. This would offer scientists the first opportunity to study freshly obtained lunar material from the American and Russian missions of the 1960s and 1970s.

The time of the Chang’e 5 lander on the moon should be short and sweet. There may only be one lunar day left, or about 14 Earth days, because it lacks the radioisotope heating units to withstand the freezing moon nights.

The lander will dig up the materials with its drill and robotic arm and transfer them to what is called a blocker, which will lift off the moon and dock with the service capsule. The materials will then be moved into the return capsule to be transported to Earth.

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The technical complexity of Chang’e 5, with its four components, makes it “remarkable in many ways,” said Joan Johnson-Freese, a space expert at US Naval War College.

“China is proving to be able to successfully develop and carry out sustained high-tech programs that are important for regional influence and potential global partnerships,” he said.

In particular, the ability to collect samples from space is growing in value, said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Other countries planning to recover material from asteroids or even Mars could look to China’s experience, he said.

The Chinese mission comes as the Japanese space agency is just days away from the asteroid samples recovered from the Hayabusa-2 satellite, which will be deposited from the capsule in southern Australia. The will conducts a flyby of the Earth before continuing its mission through the solar system.

While the Chinese mission is “really challenging,” McDowell said China has already landed twice on the moon with its Chang’e 3 and Chang’e 4 missions, and has demonstrated with a Chang’e 5 test mission. 2014 that can go back Earth, re-enter and land a capsule. All that remains is to prove that he can collect samples and take off from the moon again.

“Consequently, I am quite optimistic that China can do it,” he said.

The mission is among China’s boldest since it first took a man into space in 2003, becoming only the third nation to do so after the United States and Russia.

While many of the achievements of China’s manned spaceflight, including building an experimental space station and conducting a spacewalk, mimic those of other countries from past years, the China National Space Administration is now moving into new territory.

Chang’e 4 – which nearly two years ago made the first soft landing on the relatively unexplored side of the moon – is currently collecting comprehensive measurements of radiation exposure from the lunar surface, vital information for any country planning to send astronauts to the moon. .

China in July became one of three countries to have launched a mission to Mars, in the case of China an orbiter and a rover that will search for signs of water on the red planet. CNSA says the Tianwen 1 probe will arrive on Mars around February.

China is increasingly engaged with foreign countries on missions and the European Space Agency will provide important information on the ground station for Chang’e 5.

US law, however, still prevents most collaborations with NASA, barring China from collaborating with the International Space Station. This prompted China to start working on its own space station and launch its own programs which put it in constant competition with Japan and India, among Asian nations seeking to achieve new heights in space.

China’s space program has progressed cautiously, with relatively few setbacks in recent years. The rocket used for the current launch failed in a previous launch attempt, but has since performed flawlessly, including the launch of Chang’e 4.

“China is working very incrementally, developing building blocks that can be used in the long term for a variety of missions,” Freese-Johnson said. China’s one-party authoritarian system also allows for “sustained political will that is often difficult in democracies,” he said.

While the US has closely followed China’s successes, it is unlikely to expand cooperation with China in the space amid political suspicion, growing military rivalry, and allegations of Chinese technology theft, experts say.

“A change in US space cooperation policy is unlikely to attract much government attention in the foreseeable future,” Johnson-Freese said.

AP