China launches spacecraft to bring back rocks from Moon

CHINA has launched a robotic spacecraft that aims to bring rocks back from the Moon in a mission that underscores the country’s space ambitions.

If successful, China will be only the third country to have retrieved lunar debris following the United States and the former Soviet Union in the Sixties and Seventies.

State media broadcast live footage of China’s largest carrier rocket, Long March-5, blasting off before dawn from the southern island of Hainan, carrying the Chang’e 5 spacecraft.

The rocket flew for nearly 37 minutes before sending the spacecraft toward its final destination, according to the China National Space Administration.

It is expected to land on the Mons Rümker, a mountainous region on the near side of the Moon where scientists believe volcanic activity existed until around one billion years ago.

Once Chang’e 5 makes it to the Moon in about eight days’ time a robotic arm will drill down about 6ft and scoop out more than 4lb of lunar soil and rocks.

The samples will be sealed and transferred to a capsule expected to land in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia on Dec 15.

Returning is one of the mission’s biggest challenges, as launching from the

Moon is more difficult than blasting off from the Earth’s surface.

“Problems like how to dissipate the heat, how to divert the flow [of exhaust], and how to control the lifting-off process are things we’ve never dealt with before,” Yu Dengyun, deputy chief designer of the lunar exploration project, told Chinese state media.

The ruling Communist Party has

‘Problems like how to dissipate the heat and how to control lift-off are things we’ve never dealt with’

i nvested heavily in i ts space programme, a source of national pride and a symbol of the country’s growing technological expertise.

China’s space achievements are advancing. The latest mission is among a slew of ambitious targets set by Beijing, which include creating a superpowerful rocket capable of delivering payloads heavier than those Nasa and private rocket firm Spacex can handle. It also plans to create a lunar base, a manned space station and a Mars rover.

The Chang’e 5 mission has been planned for years, but the original 2017 launch date was postponed due to an engineering failure.