China Probe lands on moon for collecting moon samples

Chang’e 5

On Tuesday, China's lunar mission Chang’e 5 successfully landed on the Moon. It is the third time China has successfully landed robotic spacecraft on the moon's surface. This mission is known as Chang’e 5. The mission aims to bring back moon sand to the earth. It consists of four main spacecraft that will work together to bring between 2 to 4 kilograms of moon dirt back to Earth.

Chang’e 5 was launched from China’s Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on November 23, 2020, in the Long March 5 rocket.

After the United States, Russia, and China is the third country to bring back the moon soil to Earth. The Chang'e 5 is a solar-powered lander and has just 14 Earth days of sunlight to work. Out of those 14 days, five days have already elapsed so it needs to be quick. In the next two days, the lander will collect dirt from the lunar surface with a robotic arm and drill up to 2 meters below the surface and shift the samples into an ascent vehicle.

The solar-powered ascent vehicle will then blast off the top of the lander. After the ascent vehicle docks and the rocks are transferred to the return spacecraft, the ascent vehicle will be jettisoned and the spacecraft begins its return journey.