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Chang’e-5
ChinaScience

Hong Kong team behind Chang’e 5 moon rock sampling set sights on Chang’e 6

  • PolyU researchers who developed the scoops and container for China’s lunar mission are relieved after surface and soil samples are returned to Earth
  • They will assess whether any improvements are needed for the next mission, and hope to be given a quantity of Chang’e 5’s samples for research

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Professor Yung Kai-leung and his PolyU colleagues developed the surface sampling and packing system used in China’s Chang’e 5 lunar mission. Photo: Nora Tam
Matt Ho
The Hong Kong researchers at the centre of China’s mission to collect lunar rock samples said they felt a “big relief” after the arrival of the samples back on Earth on Thursday, but they added that their space quest was far from over.
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The research team at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, led by Professor Yung Kai-leung, developed the sampling scoops and sealed container used by the Chang’e 5 mission to collect and bring back surface soil and rocks from the moon – the first collection of lunar samples for more than four decades.

“The [Chang’e 5] mission has ended, but not our project … We will compare the data collected on the moon with our design parameters and evaluate any improvements that may be needed to our design for the Chang’e 6 mission,” Yung said in a press conference on Thursday at the university campus.

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Chang’e 6, China’s next lunar mission, is expected to launch in 2023 or 2024, and will again feature the Hong Kong-developed sampling system.

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China’s Chang’e 5 lunar mission returns to Earth with moon samples

China’s Chang’e 5 lunar mission returns to Earth with moon samples

The 2kg of surface samples and a further 500 grams of underground samples brought back by the return capsule, which landed in the northern Chinese region of Inner Mongolia, were due to be unpackaged in a special facility in Beijing to prevent contamination.

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