China lays its Communist flag on the moon



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A Chinese spacecraft left the moon on Thursday, leaving behind a sign of its trip to the lunar surface.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chuying tweeted images of the national flag planted on the moon, while wishing the Chang’e 5 a safe return.

The Chang’e 5 unmanned mission was the latest in a series that included the Chinese lunar exploration program. Starting off with a load of moon rocks, the mission marked the first time a spacecraft had attempted to return moon samples since the Soviet Union had done so in the 1970s.

NASA Associate Administrator Thomas Zurbuchen praised China on its landing on Tuesday.

“Congratulations to China on the successful landing of Chang’e 5,” Zubuchen tweeted.

CHINA MOON PROBE PREPARATION FOR RETURN OF ROCK SAMPLES TO EARTH

The tweet continued, “It is not an easy task. When the samples taken from the Moon are returned to Earth, we hope that everyone benefits from being able to study this precious cargo which could advance the international scientific community.”

NASA tweeted in November that it hopes China will share “data with the global scientific community to improve our understanding of the Moon as our Apollo missions have done. [sic] the Artemis program will. “

Chang’e 5’s return module is expected to land around mid-December on the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, where the Chinese spacecraft Shenzhou has made its return since China put a man in space in 2003. China is only the third country to put a human in space after Russia and the United States.

The Chang’e 5 mission reignited discussions that China sent a crewed mission to the Moon and possibly build a science base there, although no timeline has been proposed for such projects.

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China also launched its first temporary orbiting laboratory in 2011 and a second in 2016. Plans call for a permanent space station after 2022, possibly serviced by a reusable space plane.

As China steps up cooperation with the European Space Agency and others, interactions with NASA are seriously limited by concerns about the secretive nature of China’s space program and its close ties to the country’s military.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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