Chang’e 5 Lunar Lander

Chang’e 5 (Chinese: 嫦娥五号; pinyin: Cháng’é wǔhào) was the fifth lunar exploration mission of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, and China’s first lunar sample-return mission. Like its predecessors, the spacecraft is named after the Chinese moon goddess Chang’e. It launched at 20:30 UTC on 23 November 2020 from Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on Hainan Island, landed on the Moon on 1 December 2020, collected ~1,731 g (61.1 oz) of lunar samples (including from a core ~1 m deep), and returned to the Earth at 17:59 UTC on 16 December 2020.

Chang’e-5 was the first lunar sample-return mission since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 in 1976. The mission made China the third country to return samples from the Moon after the United States and the Soviet Union.