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China’s Chang’e 5 enters crucial 48 hours of its mission after moon landing
- Run on a solar battery, the spacecraft has two days to gather rocks and dust from the surface and drill underground
- Landing coincides with collapse of the US’ ageing Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, which has aided Chinese scientists’ research
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Space exploration is full of drama. On Tuesday, the very day that China’s Chang’e 5 spacecraft landed on the moon and started gathering the first lunar rock samples in over 40 years, the giant radio dish collapsed at the Arecibo Observatory, a legendary icon of American ambitions to conquer deep space.
“Congratulations to the China National Space Administration,” the European Space Agency (ESA) tweeted. The ESA also retweeted the news about Arecibo, the radio telescope in Puerto Rico that the United States last month decided to withdraw from service after more than half a century of operation.
Those sentiments were echoed in space research communities across the globe. To some, the two events felt symbolic.
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A technically challenging landing by Chang’e followed persistent and increasing funding of space programmes by the Chinese government, while Arecibo has struggled for years and had its budget cut in Washington.
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China space control juggling with at least three space missions since Chang’e 5 launch
China space control juggling with at least three space missions since Chang’e 5 launch
“We must be clear that China is still behind the US in many areas [including space],” Professor Wu Xuebing, director of the department of astronomy at Peking University, said. “But we hope to catch up one day.”
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