The Chinese government announced that an unmanned spacecraft launched late last month returned capsules containing samples of rocks collected on the moon to inland China on the early morning of the 17th.
This is the third country to collect lunar rocks, following the United States and the former Soviet Union, for the first time in 44 years.
The National Space Agency of China launched a capsule containing samples such as rocks collected on the moon by the unmanned spacecraft "Chang'e 5", which was launched on the 24th of last month and landed on the surface of the moon on the 1st of this month. Announced that it has landed in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
State-owned China Central Television reports that a recovery team arriving at the scene is using a crane to lift and collect a containment vessel that appears to contain capsules.
In this plan, a drill or robot arm will be used to collect about 2 kg of rocks on the surface of the moon and in the ground, and the capsule will be then transported by aircraft to a facility in Beijing for confirmation work. Will be done.
It is the third country after the United States and the former Soviet Union to collect lunar rocks, and it is the first time in 44 years since the former Soviet unmanned lunar explorer "Luna 24" collected it in 1976.
China has made the lunar exploration plan an important pillar of space development, including the world's first successful landing of a spacecraft on the backside of the moon, which is said to be difficult to communicate with the earth last year.
Regarding the exploration of the moon, international competition is accelerating, with the construction of a new space station orbiting the moon and the participation of Japan in the US-led "Artemis Program" to send astronauts to the surface of the moon again. I will.