OREANDA-NEWS. The landing module of the Chinese automatic space station Chang’e-5 began work on the lunar surface. According to the China National Space Administration, the apparatus successfully drilled the soil of an Earth satellite to a depth of 2 meters, after which it lifted samples of geological rocks and packed them into a container. In this form, the collected samples will be kept during the forthcoming shipment to Earth.

Among other tasks of the module is collecting soil samples from the Moon surface using a manipulator arm.

In total, it is planned to collect about 2 kilograms of lunar rock, after which the manipulator will place the samples in a special capsule of the reentry vehicle. If the mission is successfully completed, China will become the third country in the world after Russia and the United States of America to deliver lunar regolith to our planet.