China’s daring mission to grab Moon rocks is underway

A Chinese spacecraft is on its way to the Moon after launching off the coast of Hainan Island, in southern China, this morning at 4:30 AM local time, Nature.com reports.

Chang’e-5’s mission is to retrieve rocks from the Moon and return them to Earth. If successful, the craft will be the first to collect lunar material in 44 years — and a first for China, ushering in the next phase of its increasingly complex lunar exploration programme. Several Chang’e spacecrafts, which are named after a Chinese Moon goddess, have reached and touched down on the Moon, including landing on its far side.

Chang’e-5 blasted off from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center aboard the Chinese Long March-5 rocket, and began its 800,000 kilometre roundtrip to the Moon, which will take about three weeks.

“I just left the coast after seeing the rocket take off. I was so excited, and tears filled my eyes,“ says Xiao Long, a planetary geologist at the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan. “This will greatly encourage people, especially the younger generation to study and explore the worlds beyond our Earth.“

Clive Neal, a geoscientist at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, says if successful, the mission marks the beginning of a new era of robotic sample returns from the Moon that will undoubtedly change scientists’ understanding of the planetary body. “Now we wait for the samples to be collected and returned.“

The Chinese National Space Administration-led mission is receiving communications support from the European Space Agency to track the spacecraft’s journey through deep space, and on its return to Earth in mid-December.