Moon rocks collection mission of China is launching soon
International Desk:
China plans to, as soon as early Monday morning, launch a spacecraft to the moon’s surface that aims to be the first to bring back lunar rocks in more than four decades.
The mission, Chang’e-5, is the latest step in an ambitious space program that China hopes will culminate with an international lunar research station and ultimately a human colony on the moon by the 2030s.
If Chang’e-5 is successful, China will be only the third nation to bring pieces of the moon back to Earth. NASA astronauts accomplished that feat during the Apollo moon landings, as did the Soviet Union’s Luna robotic landers, ending with Luna 24 in 1976. Those samples made major contributions to our understanding of the solar system’s evolution, and planetary scientists have waited eagerly for the day more samples would be brought back to Earth.
In this century, so far only China has successfully put robotic spacecraft on the surface of the moon: Chang’e-3 in December 2013, and Chang’e-4, which in January 2019 became the first spacecraft to land on the far side of the moon. Chang’e-4 is still roving and studying lunar geology nearly two years later.
