Long-time Slashdot reader cusco writes:
In the first return of a lunar sample since the Soviets in 1976, the Chang’e 5 spacecraft landed Thursday in Inner Mongolia with 2 kilograms of material drilled from as much as two meters below the surface… On December 3, the ascent stage took off from the moon with the sample, docking with the orbiter three days later. After jettisoning the ascent stage the orbiter returned to Earth and was recovered December 17.
Here’s a (fairly bad) video of the drilling and sample acquisition, and a video of the recovery, with an IR camera shot showing the hot lander and what appears to be a fox running past.
China’s 23-day mission makes it only the third country to return samples from the moon, reports the South China Morning Post, while the drill sites are “believed to be much younger than that of the locations sampled by the Americans and the Russians…”
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday said space exploration knew no limits and called for new interplanetary exploration to turn China into a major power in space and realise national rejuvenation, as well as the peaceful use of space… The lander vehicle of the Chang’e 5 also for the first time unfolded a Chinese five-star national flag on the moon and will hold it there permanently, as it was abandoned after being used as a launch pad for the ascending vehicle…
With the successful completion of the mission, the Chang’e lunar programme aims to land Chinese astronauts on the nearest celestial body by 2030, and set up a permanent research space on the south pole of the moon in the future. China’s space ambition goes beyond the moon. It sent a probe to Mars in July, and is preparing to launch a Chinese space station next year.
of this story at Slashdot.
Source:: Slashdot