China will launch a rocket to the moon in 48 hours to retrieve valuable lunar rocks from the surface

CHINA is ready to launch an unmanned spacecraft to the moon on a mission to bring back the moon rocks from the surface.

It will be the first attempt by any country to recover highly valuable samples from Earth’s natural satellite in nearly 45 years.

6

6

The Chang’e-5 probe, named after the ancient Chinese moon goddess, will seek to collect material that should help scientists better understand its origins.

The launch, expected in the next 48-72 hours, will also test the superpower’s ability to acquire samples remotely from space, before more complex missions in the future.

If successful, China will become the only third country to have recovered lunar samples, after the United States and the Soviet Union decades ago.

During the Apollo program, which first put humans on the moon, the United States landed 12 astronauts on six flights from 1969 to 1972, returning 842 pounds of rock and soil.

The Soviet Union deployed three successful robotic champion return missions in the 1970s.

The last one – the Luna 24 – only recovered six ounces of samples in 1976 from Mare Crisium, or “Sea of ​​Crises”.

6

6

The Chinese probe, scheduled for launch in the next few days, will attempt to collect more than 4 pounds of samples in a previously unvisited area known as Oceanus Procellarum, or “Ocean of Storms”.

“The Apollo-Moon sample zone of the Moon, while critical to our understanding, was undertaken in an area that encompasses far less than half the lunar surface,” said James Head, a planetary scientist at Brown University in Rhode Island. .

Subsequent data from orbital remote sensing missions showed a wider diversity of rock types, mineralogy, and age than that depicted in the Apollo-Moon sample collections, he added.

“Lunar scientists have supported robotic sample return missions in these many different critical areas in order to address a number of key questions left over from the previous exploration,” the expert said.

The new mission could help answer questions like how long the Moon has been volcanically active within it and when its magnetic field – key to protecting any life form from solar radiation – has dissipated.

6

6

Once in orbit, the spacecraft will aim to deploy a couple of vehicles to the surface: a lander will drill through the ground, then transfer its soil and rock samples to a blocker that will lift and dock with an orbiting module.

If this is successful, the samples will be transferred to a return capsule that will take them back to Earth.

China made its first moon landing in 2013, and six years later the Chang’e-4 probe landed on the opposite side of the moon, the first from any nation’s spacecraft.

Within the next decade, China plans to establish a robotic base station to conduct unmanned exploration in the South Pole region.

It is to be developed through the Chang’e-67 and 8 missions until the 1920s and expanded until 2030 before manned landings.

China plans to recover samples from Mars by 2030.

In July, China launched an unmanned probe to Mars on its first independent mission to another planet.

The Chinese mission to the moon comes just a month after it was reported that the US Space Force will someday send humans into space and may set up its own moon base with robots.

US space command leader John Shaw said he sees space soldiers as part of the army’s future plans.

“At some point, yes, we will put humans into space,” Shaw told virtual attendees at the AFWERX Engage Space Conference, C4ISRNET reports.

“They can run a command center somewhere in the lunar environment or somewhere else where we continue to run an architecture that is largely autonomous.”