BEIJING: China’s Chang’e-5 probe, which successfully returned to Earth this week, has retrieved about 1,731 grams of samples from the moon, the country’s space agency said Saturday.
The samples were transferred to the Chinese investigation teams on Saturday morning.
Scientists will conduct the storage, analysis and investigation of the country’s first samples collected from the alien object, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said.
The return capsule from the Chang’e-5 probe landed in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the early hours of Thursday, bringing the samples from the moon.
The Chang’e-5 mission marks a successful completion of China’s current three-stage lunar orbit and landing, and sample return program, which began in 2004.
It was the country’s first attempt to bring the lunar samples in more than 40 years after the US sent astronauts to the moon to collect samples. In the Soviet Union’s unmanned lunar sampling missions, the spacecraft took off from the moon and returned straight to Earth.
The Chang’e-5 probe, consisting of an orbiter, lander, ascender and returner, was launched on November 24 and its lander-ascender combination landed north of the Mons Rumker in Oceanus Procellarum, also known as the Ocean of Storms, on the near side of the moon on December 1.
China has emerged in recent years as a major space force with manned space missions and the landing of a rover in the dark side of the moon. It is currently building its own space station.
Chang’e-5, the third Chinese spacecraft to land on the moon, is the latest in a series of increasingly ambitious missions for the Beijing space program.
The samples were transferred to the Chinese investigation teams on Saturday morning.
Scientists will conduct the storage, analysis and investigation of the country’s first samples collected from the alien object, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said.
The return capsule from the Chang’e-5 probe landed in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the early hours of Thursday, bringing the samples from the moon.
The Chang’e-5 mission marks a successful completion of China’s current three-stage lunar orbit and landing, and sample return program, which began in 2004.
It was the country’s first attempt to bring the lunar samples in more than 40 years after the US sent astronauts to the moon to collect samples. In the Soviet Union’s unmanned lunar sampling missions, the spacecraft took off from the moon and returned straight to Earth.
The Chang’e-5 probe, consisting of an orbiter, lander, ascender and returner, was launched on November 24 and its lander-ascender combination landed north of the Mons Rumker in Oceanus Procellarum, also known as the Ocean of Storms, on the near side of the moon on December 1.
China has emerged in recent years as a major space force with manned space missions and the landing of a rover in the dark side of the moon. It is currently building its own space station.
Chang’e-5, the third Chinese spacecraft to land on the moon, is the latest in a series of increasingly ambitious missions for the Beijing space program.