Beijing’s space agency says a Chinese probe sent to the moon to bring back the first lunar models in four decades has successfully landed.
China has poured billions into its military-run space program, hoping to have a team space station by 2022, eventually sending humans to the moon.
The goal of a recent mission is to collect lunar rocks and soil to help scientists learn about the moon’s origin, formation, and volcanic activity on its surface.
The state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Chinese media as saying that the Chang-5 spacecraft, named after the Chinese moon goddess, landed near the moon late Tuesday. Location Management.
If the return voyage is successful, China will be the third country to retrieve samples from the moon, following the United States and the Soviet Union in the 60s and 70s.
The study entered lunar orbit on Saturday after a 112-hour journey from Earth, Xinhua said. After a rocket from Hainan province launched it into space last week.
According to the scientific journal Nature, 2 kg (4.5 lb) of surface material should be collected in a previously unexplored area known as the Oceanus Procellerum (Storm of Oceans), which has a vast volcanic plain.
The collection will take place on a lunar day – which equates to about 14 Earth days.
NASA says its lunar samples will then return to Earth in a capsule planned to land in northern China’s Inner Mongolia.
Jonathan McDowell, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Astronomical Center, said last month that the task was technically challenging and involved many discoveries not made during previous attempts to collect lunar rocks.
Under President Xi Jinping, China’s plans for the “space dream”, as he calls it, have gone at high speed.
The The new superpower is trying to capture the United States and Russia Many years late their space fits with milestones.
A Chinese lunar rover made its worldwide first landing far from the moon in January 2019, raising Beijing’s aspirations to become a space superpower.
One of the ambitious goals set by Beijing in the latest study is to build a powerful rocket capable of delivering powerful loads that NASA and private rocket company SpaceX can handle, including a lunar platform and a permanently operating space station.
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