China's Chang'e-5 successfully lands on moon to collect lunar samples

China National Space Administration (CNSA) on Tuesday, announced that its Chang'e-5 probe has successfully landed on the near side of the moon. The Chinese Lunar Exploration Programme's robotic mission aims to bring back moon samples to Earth for the first time since the 1970s.

The Chang’e 5 probe is the latest experiment by the Chinese space programme that sent its first astronaut into orbit in 2003, has a spacecraft en route to Mars, and aims eventually to land a human on the moon. The lander was launched on November 23 at 20:30 UTC from the tropical southern island of Hainan. It is expected to return to Earth around December 16–17.

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Lander to collect 2 kilograms of rocks and debris

The lander is expected to spend the next couple of days examining its surroundings and gathering up surface materials. The lander will drill into the lunar surface and will collect 2 kilograms of rocks and debris. The sample will be lifted up into orbit and transferred to a return capsule for the trip to Earth. If the mission is successful, it will be the first time scientists have collected fresh samples of lunar rocks since a Soviet probe in the 1970s.

The first samples of lunar rocks were brought by US astronauts with NASA's Apollo space programme from 1969 to 1972. They brought back about 382 kilograms of lunar samples during the missions.

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China's Chang'e 5 flight is its third successful lunar landing after its predecessor, Chang'e 4, became the first probe to land on the moon's little-explored far side last year. The latest flight includes collaboration with the European Space Agency, which is helping to monitor the mission.

Meanwhile, the Chinese space programme has proceeded more cautiously than the United States and Soviet space race of the 1960s, which was marked by fatalities and launch failures. China became the third country to send an astronaut into orbit on its own in 2003 after the Soviet Union and the United States and also launched a crewed space station.

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(With agency inputs; Image-AP)