The Long March-5 rocket, with China's new lunar probe Chang'e-5 on top, is seen on the launch pad at the Wenchang Space Launch Center on Nov. 17 in Hainan, China.
If successful, the mission will make China only the third country to have retrieved lunar samples, following the United States and the Soviet Union decades ago. The Soviet Union deployed three successful robotic sample return missions in the 1970s. The last, the Luna 24, retrieved 170.1 grams of samples in 1976 from Mare Crisium, or"Sea of Crises".
Subsequent data from orbital remote sensing missions have shown a wider diversity of rock types, mineralogies and ages than represented in the Apollo-Luna sample collections, he said.
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