A Chinese spacecraft dug into the moon’s surface Tuesday as part of a mission to bring back lunar rocks for the first time since the Soviet Luna 24 probe retrieved samples in 1976, officials said.
The Chang’e 5 probe, which descended from an orbiter and touched down on the Sea of Storms, released images showing the lander’s shadow on the moon’s near side, the China National Space Administration said.
“Chang’e has collected moon samples,” the agency said in a statement.
The landing is “a historic step in China’s cooperation with the international community in the peaceful use of outer space,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.
“China will continue to promote international cooperation and the exploration and use of outer space in the spirit of working for the benefit of all mankind,” she added.
Plans call for Chang’e to spend two days drilling and collecting 4.4 pounds of rocks and debris.
The top stage of the craft is expected to be launched back into lunar orbit to transfer the precious cargo to the capsule for the journey back to Earth, much like NASA’s manned Apollo 11 Eagle Lunar Module did for the first time in 1969.
The Chinese spacecraft is to land in China’s northern grasslands in mid-December.
The samples are expected to be made available to other countries, though it is unclear how much access NASA will have due to US government restrictions on cooperation with China’s military-linked space program.
US and Russian space officials congratulated their Chinese counterparts.
“Congratulations to China on the successful landing of Chang’e 5. This is no easy task,” NASA science mission chief Thomas Zurbuchen said on Twitter.
“When the samples collected on the Moon are returned to Earth, we hope everyone will benefit from being able to study this precious cargo that could advance the international science community,” he added.
American astronauts brought back 842 pounds of lunar samples from the Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972.
The Chinese probe — launched Nov. 24 from the tropical island of Hainan — is the latest venture by a space program that sent the country’s first astronaut into orbit in 2003.
Beijing, which also has a spacecraft en route to Mars, aims to eventually land a human on the moon, where the last person to have walked was Apollo 17 astronaut Eugene Cernan, who died Jan. 16, 2017, at age 82.
With Post Wires