now you might remember the images last
month of a chinese spacecraft blasting
off for the moon
well it's due to return to earth in the
coming hours carrying
fresh samples of moon rocks and debris
chinese ground crews are awaiting the
landing of the unmanned mission
and we and with it the first lunar
samples in more than
45 years
chiang 5 was one of the most complicated
and challenging missions
in china's aerospace history
when the rocket was launched on november
23rd it was a source of national pride
the probe was made up of four modules
one was the lander which is dug for
rocks and soil
the materials were then transferred into
a return capsule
for the journey back to earth
our current lunar program consists of
three phases
orbiting landing and returning the
shangha 5 will carry out the third phase
bringing moon samples back to the earth
for the first time
we hope this will be a success
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it's the first time in four decades that
material has been brought back from the
moon
china's space ambitions are no secret
and have been growing for years
in 2003 it secured a major breakthrough
when it became the third country in the
world to send a man
into space
ten years later china hit another
milestone
successfully landing an unpiloted
spacecraft on the moon
it was the first soft landing since the
soviet union's success
in 1976 more chinese cheers in january
2019 in a global first
a lunar probe touching down on the far
side of the moon
boosting china's space ambitions mars is
also in its sights
this year beijing launching an unmanned
probe to the red planet
[Applause]
in july china put the final satellite
into orbit for its chinese navigation
system
the country's rival to the u.s owned gps
but this lunar mission to bring back
material from the moon
was one of china's most ambitious to
date
and joining us now from the netherlands
is mark mccouchran
he's senior advisor for science and
exploration at the european space
agency mark thanks for joining us this
is a complex mission and it could still
end in failure if the spaceship crashes
upon
landing how challenging is the technical
side of this mission
i think it's important to realize that
china could have done this in a simpler
way it could have had a direct return of
lunar samples from the surface for
example
but it's chosen to do it in a way which
is complicated
because it leads to the next step it
leads to the ability to send humans to
the moon
so for example landing on the surface
with an orbiter
going around the moon and then
rendezvousing with that orbiter
reconnecting with it getting rid of one
piece of the spacecraft flying back with
another these are all the things that
the apollo missions did in the 1960s and
70s so i think it is
more challenging than it needs to be for
what it's doing today
but for a very very specific purpose is
that the main purpose then
to put humans on on the moon
well in this case of course they're
bringing samples back from an
interesting location a place called
mons rumka in the oceanis pro salarum
which is the ocean of storms on the moon
and in fact it's a place that no other
mission has been to before whether
soviet or american the samples there
that the
minerals on the moon are much younger
than in other locations
so that's actually important for trying
to understand the evolution of the moon
what happened there
billions of years ago and also it's
important because those samples will be
as i say different from the ones we
brought back before and we're very
interested
everybody all the international
countries interested in going back to
the moon
are really curious about how to extract
resources from the minerals on the moon
water oxygen and other things which we
can use
when we actually go and sit on the moon
for a longer period of time
so you'll be sharing the information but
china has been putting so much effort in
space
exploration in recent years are we
heading into a future where
china leads the race and the us and
europe will be struggling to keep
up yeah well yes this this narrative
about the the
new space race is is constant but i
actually don't think it's like that at
all
we're collaborating very actively with
china on scientific missions we've also
sent some of our astronauts to train
with china
so there's a possibility in the future
that we might actually fly on the
chinese space station for example
and at the same time the united states
and europe along with canada and japan
and perhaps with russia as well are
looking to build a thing called the
lunar gateway we've been building
hardware for years to go back to the
moon
just delivered that to nasa so it's
ready to fly astronauts back to the moon
three european astronauts will be going
to the moon in the next decade
so but this is all part i think of a
very different approach to lunar
exploration
and the rest of the solar system a much
more collaborative approach
so i think yes china's doing very
impressive work at the moment
we shouldn't deny that for a moment but
it's something which we're all doing
together and i think
it's very exciting time for a space
exploration in the next decade
indeed mark mccorquin from the european
space agency thank you very much
my pleasure
you