BEIJING, Dec 2, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – 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 poured billions into its military-run space programme, with
hopes of having a crewed space station by 2022 and of eventually sending
humans to the Moon.
The Chang’e-5 spacecraft — named for the mythical Chinese moon goddess —
touched down on the near side of the Moon on Tuesday, the China National
Space Administration said.
Chang’e-5’s goal is to collect lunar rocks and soil to help scientists
learn about the Moon’s origins, formation and volcanic activity.
If the return journey is successful, China will be only the third country
to have retrieved samples from the Moon, following 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 so far”.
The probe was launched from China’s southern Hainan province last week and
entered lunar orbit on Saturday after a 112-hour journey, CNSA said.
State broadcaster CCTV showed rows of scientists at mission control,
wearing blue jackets emblazoned with Chinese flags, monitoring the probe then
clapping after it successfully touched down.
A huge screen at the front of the room displayed images sent by the probe
of the grey 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 science journal Nature.
The probe was designed to both get samples from the Moon’s surface, as
well as drill a two-metre (7-foot) deep hole and gather specimens from there,
to ensure a diverse collection.
State media said the craft was preparing for “around 48 hours” of tasks on
the lunar surface.
The samples will then be returned to Earth in a capsule programmed to land
in northern China’s Inner Mongolia region in December, according to US space
agency NASA.
The mission is technically challenging and involves several innovations
not seen during previous attempts at collecting moon rocks, Harvard-
Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics researcher Jonathan McDowell told AFP
last month.
Thomas Zurbuchen, a top official at NASA’s science mission directorate,
congratulated China on the landing.
“This is no easy task,” he tweeted. “When the samples collected on the
Moon are returned to Earth, we hope everyone will benefit from being able to
study this precious cargo that could advance the international science
community.”
– ‘Space dream’ –
Under President Xi Jinping, plans for China’s “space dream”, as he calls
it, have been put into overdrive.
Beijing is looking to finally catch up with the US and Russia after years
of belatedly matching 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 global first that boosted Beijing’s aspirations to become a space
superpower.
The latest probe is among a slew of ambitious targets, which include
creating a powerful rocket capable of delivering payloads heavier than those
NASA and private rocket firm SpaceX can handle, a lunar base, and a
permanently crewed space station.
China’s taikonauts and scientists have also talked up crewed missions to
Mars.