China’s Chang’e-5 successfully lands on the moon

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced Tuesday that the Chang’e-5 probe has successfully landed on the near side of the moon.

As the space probe ascended to the summit, the probe landed at around 11:00 pm (Beijing time), becoming the third China probe to successfully land on the moon. He sent footage from the moment he landed.

In the next two days, the probe will collect about two kilograms of lunar samples.

The Chang’e-5 probe includes a landing craft, an ascendant, an orbiter, and a reenter. After the spacecraft entered the lunar circular orbit at an altitude of 200 km above the moon, the pair of the probe and the ascendant split, descended, and landed in the planned region on the moon.

The probe will wash away some surface material and also dig a hole two meters deep and scoop up soil from within, which will act like the archive of the moon, with the bottom part recording information from a billion years and the top more closely mirroring the present day.

The samples will then be stored in the ascendant, which will be launched from the moon’s surface to transport the moon samples to the return and the orbiter waiting in the lunar orbit. The unmanned rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit will be the first such mission by China.

Then, in time, the return will separate from the orbiter and carry samples to Earth, which will finally land in Inner Mongolia in northern China.

Read more: Chinese Lunar Mission Chang’e-5 explained in graphics

Tech It Out: Chang’e-5, the most complex Chinese space mission ever

Once completed, the Chang’e-5 probe will become part of the world’s first unmanned sample return mission from the Moon in 40 years, and will make China^{The third country in the world to return samples from the moon after the United States and the former Soviet Union.}

The Chang’e-5 probe was launched in the early morning of November 24. It is one of the most complex and challenging Chinese space missions to date, and will contribute to scientific studies in areas such as the formation and evolution of the Moon.

Read more: China successfully launched Chang’e-5 to collect samples from the moon

(CGTN’s Liu Hui also contributed to the report.)