China to Launch Its First Spacecraft to Moon to Collect Samples, Return to Earth

China said on Monday that it will launch its first unmanned space mission on Tuesday to collect samples from the moon’s surface and return to earth, which its scientists say is one of the country’s most complicated and challenging space missions. The rocket, which will send the Chang’e-5 spacecraft to Earth-moon transfer orbit, is scheduled to be launched from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in south China’s Hainan Province in the early hours on Tuesday. The Chang’e-5 mission aims to conduct unmanned lunar sample collection and return to Earth, one of the country’s most complicated and challenging space missions, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Chang’e-4, including a lander and a moon rover called Yutu-2, or Jade Rabbit-2, conducted low-frequency radio astronomical observation, terrain and landform survey, mineral composition and shallow lunar surface structure detection, and neutron radiation and neutral atom measurement, according to Xinhua reports.