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China successfully launched an unmanned spacecraft on a mission to explore part of the moon early Tuesday in an effort to become only the third nation to collect rocks and debris from the lunar surface.
Named Chang’e 5, in honor of the ancient Chinese moon goddess, the spacecraft’s four modules exploded atop a huge Long March-5Y rocket from the Wenchang spacecraft launch site in southern Hainan province.
The ambitious mission intends to land the spacecraft in an area called Oceanus Procellarum and will attempt to collect lunar material by drilling 7 feet into the surface with its drill and robotic arm, digging around 2 kilograms of rocks and soil. The sample will then be transferred to what is called a blocker.
The materials will then be moved into the return capsule to be transported to Earth. The information the samples can provide could help scientists better understand the Moon’s origins, formation, and solar system in general.
The spacecraft will reach the surface in about three days and stay there for the duration of one lunar day, which is about 14 Earth days because it lacks the radioisotopic heating units needed to withstand the moon’s frigid nights.
If successful, China will only be the third country to bring back lunar samples, joining the United States and the former Soviet Union, and the first in over 40 years.
The mission also highlights China’s ambitions in space technology and its attempts to boost its space program, with the hope of having its own manned space station by 2022 and ultimately sending humans to the moon.
Chang’e 5 and future lunar missions aim to “provide better technical support for future scientific and exploratory activities,” Pei Zhaoyu, mission spokesperson and deputy director of the Chinese Space Administration’s Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center, told reporters. .
“Scientific necessities and technical and economic conditions” will determine whether China decides to send a manned mission to the moon, Pei said.
“I think future exploration activities on the moon will most likely be carried out in a human-machine combination,” he said.
As part of its space endeavors, the country also successfully landed a spacecraft on the far side of the moon in 2019, becoming the first country to do so.
In July of this year, China became one of three countries to have launched a mission to Mars in an attempt to search for signs of water on the red planet. CNSA says the Tianwen 1 probe will arrive on Mars around February.
Additional reporting by agencies
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