China successfully launches mission to moon to collect rock samples

China on Tuesday successfully launched its unmanned space
mission to moon, its first as a sample-collector, which will retrieve moon
rocks and soil and come back to earth.

The Chang’e 5 was shot to the closest celestial body to
earth from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in the southern province of
Hainan, China, at around 2 am China standard time.

The rover is likely to land on moon after November 27 and
return to earth around December 16.

This is the first sample-collecting expedition to moon by
any nation since Soviet Union’s Luna 24 in 1976, and also first ever by China.

If successful, China will become the third country after the US
and the then USSR to have achieved the feat.

The previous expeditions by US and USSR had come in the
1960s and 70s, making the Chang’e 5, now en route to moon, first to have undertaken
the task in more than four decades.

Chang’e 5 is set to bring back at least 2 kg (4.4 pound) of
lunar soil and rock samples. The probe will perform a soft landing on the Moon,
then rendezvous and dock with the return module in lunar orbit and fly back to
Earth.

The mission is important because of the insight it can
provide into the right geological age and makeup of earth’s only natural satellite.

Chang’e 5 is the latest of Chang’e series of China’s
expeditions to moon, which the country aims to execute in four phases,
concluding with building of a crewed outpost there by the 2030s.

The Asian heavyweight has already sent four expeditions previously
to the moon beginning in 2007 when it sent its first probe to the lunar orbit. It
landed its fourth such probe on the far side of the moon last January—a first
ever landing in that territory for any nation.

Chang’e-5 comprises an orbiter, a lander, an ascender and
a returner, with a total take-off mass of 8.2 tonnes. 

It is expected to accomplish
unmanned rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit.

While the orbiter-returner orbits about 200 km above the
lunar surface, the lander-ascender will touch down on the northwest region of
Oceanus Procellarum, also known as the Ocean of Storms, on the near side of the
moon in early December, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.