BEIJING (AP) – A Chinese lunar capsule returned to Earth on Thursday with the first fresh samples of rock and moon debris in more than 40 years.
The Chang’e 5 spacecraft capsule landed in Siziwang district in the Inner Mongolia region, state media reported shortly after 2:00 a.m. (1800 GMT).
The capsule previously separated from its orbiting module and bounced against the Earth’s atmosphere to reduce its speed before passing and floating on the ground in a parachute.
Two of the four Chang’e 5 modules were installed on the moon on December 1 and collected about 2 kilograms of samples by removing them from the surface and drilling 2 meters (approximately 6 feet) into the crust of the moon.
Samples were deposited in a sealed container that a boarding vehicle took to the return module.
The success of the mission was the latest breakthrough in China’s increasingly ambitious space program, which includes a robotic mission to Mars and plans a permanent space station in orbit.
Recovery crews had prepared helicopters and all-terrain vehicles to enter the home with signals from the lunar spacecraft and placed it in the darkness surrounding the vast, snow-covered region of the far north of China. which was a landing site for Shenzhou manned spacecraft. .
The return of the spacecraft was the first time scientists obtained fresh samples of lunar rocks from the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 robotic spacecraft in 1976.
The newly collected rocks are believed to be billions of years younger than those previously obtained by the United States and the former Soviet Union, which offer new insights into the history of the moon and other bodies in the solar system. They come from a part of the moon known as Oceanus Procellarum, or Ocean of Storms, near a place called Mons Rumker which was believed to be volcanic in ancient times.
As with the 382 kilograms (842 pounds) of lunar samples recovered by U.S. astronauts from 1969 to 1972, they will be analyzed by age and composition and are expected to be shared with other countries.
The age of the samples will help fill a gap in knowledge about the history of the moon about 1 billion and three billion years ago, Brad Jolliff, director of the McDonnell Center for Space Sciences at the University from Washington to the American city of St. Louis said in an email. They can also give clues about the availability of economically useful resources on the Moon, such as concentrated hydrogen and oxygen, Jolliff said.
“These samples will be a treasure!” Said Jolliff. “My hat is for our Chinese colleagues for having carried out a very difficult mission; the science that will emerge from the analysis of the returned samples will be a legacy that will last for many, many years and, hopefully, will involve the international community of scientists ”.
Chang’e 5 left a launch base in Hainan Province on the southern island of China on November 23 and appeared to have completed its very technically sophisticated mission without any problems.
It was China’s third successful lunar landing, but the only one to return from the moon. Its predecessor, Chang’e 4, became the first spacecraft to land on the unexplored far side of the Moon and continues to send data on conditions that could affect a future human stay on the Moon.
The moon has been a particular focus of the Chinese space program, which says it plans to land humans on it and possibly build a permanent base. No timeline or other details have been announced.
China has also joined the effort to explore Mars. In July, it launched the Tianwen 1 spacecraft, which carried a lander and a robot rover to search for water.
In 2003, China became the third country to send an astronaut into orbit on its own after the Soviet Union and the United States, and its space program has proceeded with more caution than the US-Soviet space race. sixties, marked by deaths and launch errors. By taking incremental steps, China appears on the path to creating a program that can maintain steady progress.
“They’ve read and admired the Apollo (U.S. lunar program) game book, but they’ve also learned the format,” said Joan Johnson-Freese, a Chinese space program expert at U.S. Naval War College. “It’s better to go slow and set up infrastructure for the future than to do it quickly and end up with little that allows you to keep going.”
The latest flight includes collaboration with the European Space Agency, which is helping to control the mission. Amid concerns over the secrecy of China’s space program and close military connections, the United States is banning cooperation between NASA and the CNSA unless Congress gives its approval. This has prevented China from participating in the International Space Station, which it has tried to compensate for by launching an experimental space station and plans to complete a permanent orbital advance site in the next two years.