BEIJING (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd December, 2020) China's Chang'e 5 ascent vehicle has successfully taken off from the surface of the moon� after having collected samples of lunar soil and entered the designated orbit for docking with an orbital module, the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program said on Thursday.
"On December 3, at 23:10 Beijing time [15:10 GMT] the 3000N engine of the Chang'e 5 ascent vehicle after having worked for about six minutes, successfully placed the vehicle into a designated lunar orbit," the program said in a statement.
It will be the first take off performed by a Chinese spacecraft from another celestial body.
The sample-return mission was launched from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Center in China's Hainan island province on November 24. On Tuesday, it landed on the designated area of the moon and for two days it was gathering lunar soil using its drilling equipment and a robotic arm. It is scheduled to land on December 16 or December 17 in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
