China Removes sediment from the bowels of the Moon and escapes to Earth

Chinese President Xi Jinping can take another leap of joy in the hand in hand with Donald Trump, the still President of the United States. The Chinese Chang'e-5 mission escaped from the surface of the moon yesterday afternoon with two kilos of samples taken from its surface and from the bowels of its subsoil. 

China has already achieved the most difficult part: removing solid material from the moon and placing it in orbit, which confirms China as the great space power it is and puts it on the road to achieving its dream of becoming the world leader of a thriving economic and strategic sector.

But victory is still a long way off, as there are several critical stages to be overcome over the next twelve days: transferring the samples to the orbital module, re-entering the Earth's atmosphere and landing safely in China's autonomous region of Inner Mongolia.

Whether or not Beijing succeeds in completing the various stages of the Chang'e-5 mission, Xi Jinping and his government team have their sights set on China becoming the world's leading space nation by 2049. This year has not been set to achieve the desired goal within three decades. This is because 2049 is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Xi Jinping is on his way from Mars to the Tianwen-1 probe, which will reach the Red Planet in February 2021, as will NASA's Mars 2020 in the United States and Al-Amal in the United Arab Emirates. But its target is not Mars but the Moon, a place in space of great strategic importance. Its surface with no atmosphere and virtually no gravity makes it the closest place to establish an astronaut colony or base and to be able to jump into deep space. 

In order to have dominion over the Moon, it is essential to control the so-called cislunar space, the path between the Earth and our natural planet. That is why Beijing wants to establish a manned orbital station around the moon, just as the United States wants to do with the Gateway station, a project promoted by Jim Bridenstine, the current NASA administrator.

The fact that the country is tutored by a Communist Party that perpetuates itself in the direction and governance of the official institutions makes it easier for its top leaders to define very long-term space projects, which is very difficult to achieve in Western democracies.

Proof of this is that Xi Jinping has succeeded in greatly enhancing the space sector he inherited from his predecessors. In his seven years of leadership he has managed to strengthen the country's autonomous space access capability, create an incipient private space sector and complete a national satellite navigation and positioning constellation (Beidou), equivalent to the United States' GPS and the European Union's Galileo, which has yet to be completed.

In addition, it has been able to develop a family of anti-satellite weapons systems, create an independent military Space Force, expand a powerful industry manufacturing satellites of all kinds and devote considerable economic resources to transferring artificial intelligence and 5G and 6G technology to the field of the cosmos. And, as the icing on the cake, it has succeeded in getting a significant number of countries throughout the developing world to trust, embrace and acquire the space capabilities that China provides. 

Despite being fully aware of the international repercussions of its space achievements, Beijing doses the information it disseminates outside the country, provides very few details of interest and keeps most of the Chang'e-5 mission secret. But it is known that the surface module landed gently on 1 December, that after 48 hours it completed its task of collecting lunar sediments and that all the material removed is stored in small, hermetically sealed, cylindrical containers. 

The Chang'e-5 ascent module successfully took off on Thursday, December 3, at 16:10, Spanish peninsular time, from the top of the surface module that has extracted the samples and that has been abandoned on the Moon. Over the previous two days, its panoramic camera, spectrometer and penetration radar have studied the surroundings of the site, analysed the structure of the subsoil and determined the exact location where the sounding was to take place.

The Chinese technicians supervising the mission from the Beijing Control Centre then activated a drill and extracted half a kilo of different layers from the subsoil down to a depth of two metres, according to official Chinese sources. They then used their articulated robotic arm to collect 1.5 kilos of rocks and dust from the lunar surface at various points around the immediate environment where the probe had landed.

The approach and encounter manoeuvre between the orbital module and the one that stores the lunar samples is another of the mission's critical scenarios. It is scheduled to take place on December 5th at 22:40, Spanish mainland time. From that moment on, the material will be transferred to the orbiter, which will then head back to Earth with its precious cargo.

Chang'e-5 took off aboard a Long March 5 launcher on 24 November. During its flight, it made the two scheduled corrections to its trajectory. One when it was 160,000 kilometres from the Earth and the second when it was 270,000 kilometres away.

On 29th November the ship was positioned at an altitude of 220 metres above the lunar surface. Shortly afterwards, the surface module began its slow descent in stages, until on 1 December it managed to land gently on the lunar surface, all of which was filmed by the panoramic camera on board.