The Chinese moon probe returned safely

On the morning of November 1, the Chinese moon probe safely returned to Earth, making it the third country to successfully bring the probe to the Moon.

>>>Testing the technology of lunar exploration technology to return to Earth

Xinhua said the test probe - dubbed "Xiaofei" on the Chinese social network, landed in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, about 500km from Beijing.

The engineers checked "Xiaofei" after it landed - (Photo: Xinhua)

"Xiaofei" means to test the technology to be used in the Hang Nga-5 ship mission, scheduled to take place in 2017. In this mission, an unmanned Chinese spacecraft will land on the Moon, collect soil samples and return to Earth.

"Xiaofei" was launched on October 24, and has traveled 840,000km after 8 days of flying. It flew around the Moon and captured some 'incredible' images of the Earth and the Moon.

At around 6 am on November 1, the ship began to return to Earth at a cruising speed of 11.2 km / sec - a tremendous heat friction process that could destroy the hull and cause contact loss with the ground.

Zhou Jianliang, chief engineer at Beijing Space Command and Control Center, said to help "Xiaofei" slow down, they designed the spacecraft to "fly" out of the atmosphere before returning and landing. .

Scientists gather at the place "Xiaofei" landed - (Photo: Xinhua)

According to Wu Yanhua - Deputy Director of China's Defense Science, Technology and Industry Agency, "Xiaofei" has gathered a lot of test data and laid a solid foundation for Moon exploration missions. Future.

So far, only the US and the Soviet Union (Russia) have taken the probe to the Moon and returned, and this has not happened since the Soviet mission of the Moon probe in the 1970s.