Chang’e 5 moon mission gives China ‘unequalled record’ in lunar landings
- Apollo 11 expert and space historian praises three out of three successes after raising a Tsingtao to returning capsule
- For Beijing, the programme is a vindication of its political system as well as a demonstration of technological progress
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China’s Chang’e 5 lunar mission returns to Earth with moon samples
On the moon, “the on-board automatic landing computer stopped the descent while it took pictures and evaluated a landing point free of boulders and craters, then it moved sideways and descended to a safe spot,” MacTaggart said.
“I was especially impressed by the high level of Chinese automation and mechanical devices, all of which worked perfectly reliably up to 400,000km (248,500 miles) from Earth, and far beyond direct human intervention.”
“China has now achieved three highly successful lunar landings out of three attempts, which is an unequalled record in this difficult space mission … Earlier moon landings by other nations suffered many failures and used much more primitive technology,” he said.
To China, the Chang’e 5 mission was not merely a demonstration of its technological progress. It has also further bolstered the Beijing leadership’s belief in its own political system – very different from the strictly-controlled former Soviet Union or the free democracies of the West.