Capsule returns, has moon samples
BEIJING — A Chinese lunar capsule returned to Earth today with the first fresh samples of rock and debris from the moon in more than 40 years.
The capsule of the Chang’e 5 probe landed in the Siziwang district of the Inner Mongolia region, state media reported shortly after 2:00 a.m.
The capsule earlier separated from its orbiter module and performed a bounce off the Earth’s atmosphere to reduce its speed before passing through and floating to the ground on parachutes.
Two of the Chang’e 5’s four modules set down on the moon on Dec. 1 and collected about 4.4 pounds of samples by scooping them from the surface and by drilling about 6 feet into the moon’s crust.
The samples were deposited in a sealed container that was carried back to the return module by an ascent vehicle.
The successful mission was the latest breakthrough for China’s increasingly ambitious space program that includes a robotic mission to Mars and plans for a permanent orbiting space station.
Recovery crews had prepared helicopters and offroad vehicles to home in on signals emitted by the lunar spacecraft and locate it in the darkness shrouding the vast snow-covered region in China’s far north, long used as a landing site for China’s Shenzhou crewed spaceships.
The spacecraft’s return marked the first time scientists have obtained fresh samples of lunar rocks since the former Soviet Union’s Luna 24 robot probe in 1976.
The newly collected rocks are thought to be billions of years younger than those obtained earlier by the U.S. and former Soviet Union, offering new insights into the history of the moon and other bodies in the solar system. They come from a part of the moon known as the Oceanus Procellarum, or Ocean of Storms, near a site called the Mons Rumker that was believed to have been volcanic in ancient times.
As with the 842 pounds of lunar samples brought back by U.S. astronauts from 1969 to 1972, these will be analyzed for age and composition and are expected to be shared with other countries.
The age of the samples will help fill in a gap in knowledge about the history of the moon between roughly 1 billion and 3 billion years ago, Brad Jolliff, director of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, said in an email. They may also yield clues as to the availability of economically useful resources on the moon such as concentrated hydrogen and oxygen, Jolliff said.
“These samples will be a treasure trove!” Jolliff said. “My hat is off to our Chinese colleagues for pulling off a very difficult mission; the science that will flow from analysis of the returned samples will be a legacy that will last for many, many years, and hopefully will involve the international community of scientists.”
The Chang’e 5 blasted off from a launch base in China’s southern island province of Hainan on Nov. 23 and completed its mission without a hitch.
It marked China’s third successful lunar landing but the only one to lift off again from the moon. Its predecessor, Chang’e 4, became the first probe to land on the moon’s little-explored far side and continues to send back data on conditions that could affect a future extended stay by humans on the moon.
The moon has been a particular focus of the Chinese space program, which says it plans to land humans there and possibly construct a permanent base. No timeline or other details have been announced.
China also has joined the effort to explore Mars. In July, it launched the Tianwen 1 probe, which was carrying a lander and a robot rover to search for water.