BEIJING: An unmanned Chinese spacecraft carrying rocks and soil from the Moon returned safely to Earth early Thursday, completing another chapter in China’s effort to become a space superpower.

The mission was the first in four decades to collect lunar samples, emulating the feats of the United States and the Soviet Union from the 1960s and 1970s — and going a few steps further.

Scientists hope the samples will give insights into the Moon’s origins and volcanic activity, though a more immediate focus was on how the mission showcased China’s technological advances.

“China has been preparing for this for a long time,” Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics researcher, told AFP.

In images broadcast on state television, the blackened capsule landed on snow-covered grasslands in darkness in the country’s remote north. A Chinese flag was quickly placed next to the capsule, reflecting the nationalist pride that the multi-billion-dollar space programme engenders.

China launched its first satellite in 1970 but human spaceflight took decades longer — with Yang Liwei becoming the country’s first “taikonaut” in 2003. Under President Xi Jinping, who took power in 2012, China’s “space dream” has been put into overdrive.

A Chinese lunar rover landed on the far side of the Moon in January 2019, a global first.

The official Xinhua news agency described the latest mission as one of the most challenging and complicated in China’s aerospace history. Chang’e-5 — named after a mythical Chinese Moon goddess — landed on the Moon on December 1. During two days on the Moon, it collected two kilogrammes (4.5 pounds) of material in an volcanic area called Mons Ruemker in the Oceanus Procellarum — or “Ocean of Storms” — which was previously unexplored, China’s space agency said.

While there it also raised the Chinese flag, according to the agency.—AFP