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Several days after taking off in what is described as a March 5 “heavy lift” long rocket, China’s champion return spacecraft Chang’e 5 entered moon orbit on Saturday.
Reports on this latest development say it has moved “into position for a descent to the lunar surface in an attempt to collect samples and bring them back to Earth.”
China’s National Space Administration said the Chang-e 5 spacecraft fired its upper engine at 7:58 am EST, for a 17-minute burn to move “into an eight-hour oval orbit around the moon” .
The lunar orbit insertion maneuver covered a five-day journey from the heart since the November 23 launch of Chang’e 5.
The spacecraft was set to perform additional burns over the weekend to reach a 200-kilometer circular orbit around the moon, setting the stage for the mission’s landing module splitting for computerized descent to the lunar surface.
(Photo: Kaynouky on Wikimedia Commons)
Moon elevation map with the location of successful sample return missions landing sites and the designated landing region of Chang’e 5. Darker regions have low elevation, while brighter regions have elevation high. The map was made by NASA.
Attempt to bring back the samples in more than four decades
Chinese officials have not yet revealed when the Chang’e 5 lander will land on the moon, although the landing, they said, could take place as early as Sunday.
Chang’e 5 is looking to bring back the first samples from the moon in more than four decades. If the attempt is successful, China would be the third of the nations, after the United States and the former Soviet Union, to collect rocks from the moon’s surface and return them to Earth.
The lander’s mission will point to a touchdown near a volcanic formation known as Mon Rümker, which extends over 4,000 feet above the surrounding lava plains.
The Chang’e 5 landing site is located in the Ocean Storms or Oceanus Procellarum, a region located in the near side of the moon’s northern hemisphere.
After landing, the Chang’e 5 surface mission will take place during a two-week window of daylight at the landing site, allowing solar energy to power the spacecraft.
Landing scheduled for mid-December
According to reports, Chang’e 5 will extract up to two kilograms of material from a maximum depth of 6.6 feet below the surface.
Then, the samples will return to the lunar orbit aboard a small rocket, meet with a returning aircraft and make their way to Earth.
Furthermore, the returning vector will enter the atmosphere again, at about 40,000 kilometers per hour, much faster than a “re-entry from low Earth orbit”.
Additionally, the capsule will land around mid-December in China’s Inner Mongolia region, where teams will collect lunar samples and transport them to a laboratory for evaluation.
In an interview shortly after the launch of Chang’e 5, University of Notre Dame lunar scientist Clive Neal said that, through his previous missions, China has shown that it can land on the moon. However, he added, “they have to collect the sample”.
Younger Rocks and Chinese Prior Chang’e 5 missions
There is evidence that the rocks in the Chang’e 5 landing zone are much younger than those reported by the Apollo astronauts.
Such specimens are said to be 3.5 billion years old, created during the time that volcanism was active during the first billion years of the moon’s existence.
The lava plains east of Mons Rümker appear to be less battered by asteroid impacts, suggesting that the rocks may be less than two billion years old.
Prior to the Chang’e 5 mission, China had managed to send four robotic explorers to the moon, starting with the orbiting Chang’e 1 and Change’e 2, respectively, in 2007 and 2010.
Then, in 2013, he landed with the Chang’e 3 mission on the moon using a mobile rover that he drove across the lunar surface.
READ ALSO: China Moon Mission attempts to bring the first lunar rocks back to Earth in four decades
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