The Chinese probe lands on the moon to collect lunar samples

BEIJING, China – China has successfully landed a probe on the moon in an ambitious attempt to bring back the first lunar samples in four decades.

Beijing has invested billions in its military-run space program, with hopes of having a manned space station by 2022 and eventually sending humans to the moon.

The Chang’e-5 spacecraft, named after the mythical Chinese moon goddess, landed on Tuesday on the closest side of the moon, China’s National Space Administration said.

Chang’e-5’s goal is to collect moon rocks and soil to help scientists learn about the Moon’s origins, formation, and volcanic activity.

If the return voyage is successful, China will be only the third country to have recovered samples from the Moon, after the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s.

This is the first such attempt since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 mission in 1976.

State media on Wednesday described the mission as “one of China’s most complicated and challenging space missions to date.”

The probe was launched from China’s Hainan province last week and entered the lunar orbit on Saturday after a 112-hour journey, CNSA said.

State broadcaster CCTV showed rows of scientists at mission control, wearing blue jackets decorated with Chinese flags, monitoring the probe and clapping after it successfully landed.

A huge screen in the front of the room showed the images sent by the probe of the gray lunar surface.

‘SPACE DREAM’

The spacecraft will collect two kilograms (4.5 pounds) of material in a previously unexplored area known as Oceanus Procellarum – or “Ocean of Storms” – a vast lava plain, according to the scientific journal Nature.

The probe was designed both to take samples from the lunar surface and to drill a two-meter (7-foot) deep hole and collect samples from there, to ensure diversified collection.

State media said the aircraft was preparing for “approximately 48 hours” of activity on the lunar surface.

The samples will then be returned to Earth in a capsule scheduled to land in the Inner Mongolia region of northern China in December, according to US space agency NASA.

The mission is technically demanding and involves several innovations not seen during previous attempts to collect moon rocks, Jonathan McDowell, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told AFP last month.

Thomas Zurbuchen, a senior officer in NASA’s science mission directorate, congratulated China on the landing.

“It’s not an easy task,” he tweeted. “When the samples collected on the Moon are returned to Earth, we hope that everyone will benefit from the opportunity to study this precious cargo that could advance the international scientific community.”

Under President Xi Jinping, plans for China’s “space dream”, as he calls it, have been severely tested.

Beijing is trying to finally catch up with the United States and Russia after years of belated correspondence with their space milestones.

China launched its first satellite in 1970, while human spaceflight took decades longer – with Yang Liwei becoming China’s first “taikonaut” in 2003.

A Chinese lunar rover landed on the far side of the moon in January 2019 in a world first that bolstered Beijing’s aspirations to become a space superpower.

The latest spacecraft is part of a series of ambitious goals, which include creating a powerful rocket capable of carrying heavier loads than NASA and the private space company SpaceX can handle, a lunar base and a space station with permanent crew.

Chinese taikonauts and scientists have also talked about manned missions to Mars.

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