Chang鈥檈-5 begins return trip to Earth
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A CHINESE space capsule bringing back the first moon rocks in more than four decades started its three-day return to Earth yesterday.
The orbiter-returner combination of China’s Chang’e-5 lunar probe, which had been orbiting the moon for about a week, conducted its second orbital maneuver at 9:51am yesterday and entered the moon-Earth transfer orbit, the China National Space Administration said.
The first orbital maneuver was completed on Saturday.
Four 150N engines on the orbiter-returner combination ignited when they were 230km away from the lunar surface and shut down after 22 minutes, the administration said in a statement.
According to real-time monitoring data, the orbiter-returner combination entered the targeted orbit successfully.
The moon-Earth transfer orbit, also known as a Hohmann Transfer, is a fuel-efficient path allowing spacecraft transferring between orbits by using fuels as little as possible.
The combined orbiter and returner vehicles now has escaped the lunar gravity and set it on a path toward Earth.
Later, the spacecraft combination will conduct orbital correction during its journey to Earth. When the time is right, the orbiter and returner will separate from one another.
A skip reentry, involving bouncing off the atmosphere, a maneuver tested by the mission team in 2014, will take place before the returner heads back to Earth alone.
The probe’s returner with lunar samples collected on board is expected to land at the Siziwang Banner in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in mid-December. The material would be the first brought back since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 probe in 1976.
The Chang’e-5, comprising an orbiter, a lander, an ascender and a returner, was launched on November 24. The craft’s lander touched down on the moon earlier this month close to a formation called the Mons Rumker, an area believed to have been the site of ancient volcanic activity. It collected about 2kg of samples.
The rocks and other debris were obtained both by drilling into the moon’s crust and scooping directly off the surface.
They may be billions of years younger than those brought back by earlier US and Soviet missions, possibly offering insights into the moon’s history and that of other bodies in the solar system.
China has set up labs to analyze the samples for age and composition and is also expected to share some of them with other countries.
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