BEIJING: Chinese spacecraft Chang’e-5, which has successfully returned to Earth this week, has recovered about 1,731 grams of samples from the Moon, the country’s space agency said on Saturday.
The samples were transferred to Chinese research teams on Saturday morning.
The scientists will carry out the storage, analysis and research of the country’s first samples collected from the extraterrestrial object, said the National Space Administration of China (CNSA).
The return capsule of the Chang’e-5 spacecraft landed in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the early hours of Thursday, carrying samples collected from the moon.
The Chang’e-5 mission marks a successful completion of China’s current three-step lunar exploration program of China’s orbit and landing, and the return of samples that began in 2004.
It was the country’s first attempt to bring moon samples in more than 40 years after the U.S. sent astronauts to the moon to collect samples. In the unmanned lunar sampling missions of the Soviet Union, the spacecraft took off from the Moon and returned directly to Earth.
The Chang’e-5 spacecraft, consisting of an orbiter, a lander, an ascendant and a returner, was launched on November 24 and its lander-ascending combination touched north of Mons Rumker in the Oceanus Procellarum, also known as the Ocean of Storms, on the near side of the moon, on December 1st.
China in recent years has become a major space power with manned space missions and landing a rover on the dark side of the moon. He is currently building his own space station.
Chang’e-5, the third Chinese spacecraft to land on the moon, is the latest in a series of increasingly ambitious missions for Beijing’s space program.
The samples were transferred to Chinese research teams on Saturday morning.
The scientists will carry out the storage, analysis and research of the country’s first samples collected from the extraterrestrial object, said the National Space Administration of China (CNSA).
The return capsule of the Chang’e-5 spacecraft landed in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the early hours of Thursday, carrying samples collected from the moon.
The Chang’e-5 mission marks a successful completion of China’s current three-step lunar exploration program of China’s orbit and landing, and the return of samples that began in 2004.
It was the country’s first attempt to bring moon samples in more than 40 years after the U.S. sent astronauts to the moon to collect samples. In the unmanned lunar sampling missions of the Soviet Union, the spacecraft took off from the Moon and returned directly to Earth.
The Chang’e-5 spacecraft, consisting of an orbiter, a lander, an ascendant and a returner, was launched on November 24 and its lander-ascending combination touched north of Mons Rumker in the Oceanus Procellarum, also known as the Ocean of Storms, on the near side of the moon, on December 1st.
China in recent years has become a major space power with manned space missions and landing a rover on the dark side of the moon. He is currently building his own space station.
Chang’e-5, the third Chinese spacecraft to land on the moon, is the latest in a series of increasingly ambitious missions for Beijing’s space program.