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. Since the Soviet Union crash-landed the Luna 2 on the moon in 1959, the first human-made object to reach another celestial body, a handful of other countries including Japan and India have launched moon missions. The Soviet Union deployed three successful robotic sample return missions in the 1970s. In January 2019, the Chang'e-4 probe touched down on the far side of the moon, the first by any nation's space probe. In July, China launched an unmanned probe to Mars in its first independent mission to another planet.

Source: Dhaka Tribune November 22, 2020 04:18 UTC