China's Chang'e-5 mission - What you need to know?

Hello everyone! 

With the success of the Chang'e-5 mission, China has become the third country to retrieve sample from the Moon, after the U.S and the Soviet Union. Scientists believe the lunar rocks and soil could give us a glimpse of a much younger moon.

Chinese space probe Chang'e-5, carrying rocks and soil from the Moon, returned to Earth safely on December 17. The capsule carrying the samples landed in northern China's inner Mongolia region. This is the first lunar sample return since 1976, when the former Soviet Union's Luna 24 returned with Lunar material.

China's Chang'e-5 probe. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Chang'e-5 is a robotic mission of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, launched on November 23 2020. The Chang'e-5 probe included a lander, an ascender, orbiter and a returner. After it entered the designated circular lunar orbit, the lander-ascender pair separated from the orbiter-returner group and descended and successfully touched down near Mons Rumker, a volcanic mountain in the moon's huge Oceanus Procellarum ("Ocean of storms") region on December 1, 2020. 

Chang'e-5 - Mission profile. Credit: Space.com

The mission spent only two days on the Moon's surface, gathering samples by digging and scooping. The 2kg samples were loaded onto an ascent vehicle that is docked with and Earth-return module. 

How will the samples help scientists understand the moon?
The new specimens could provide fresh insights into the geology and early history of Earth's natural satellite. Scientists hope the samples will help them learn about the moon's origins, formation and volcanic activity on its surface. China will make some of the samples available to scientists in other countries. 

Numerous of news about this mission. 

What are China's upcoming moon missions? 

China plans to relaunch a spacecraft called Chang'e-6 to return samples from the Moon's south pole - Interesting right? The more advanced Chang'e-7 and Chang'e-8 spacecraft are also slated to land near the south pole to carry out analysis of the region and to test new technologies, including detecting and extracting materials such as water and hydrogen that could be useful for future human explorers. 

China hopes to launch an international lunar research station and ultimately a human colony on the moon by the 2030s.

That's all for this article. Stay tuned for more....

Raksita Rajagopal

This is a copyrighted content.

Information from my own research.

Picture credit: Wikimedia commons, space.com and also Google Images.