Chapter 476 Mission Completed (Third update, additional update for leader Lee00700)

The moon is peaceful most of the time, unless some meteorite hits, or humans "throw" something. Only these things will break the peace on the moon.

Just like today, someone was racing so fast that Qiu Mingshan couldn't even fit in it, so he drove straight to the moon.

Aristarchus Crater is located on the Aristarchus Plateau, in the lunar sea called the "Ocean Procellarum". This is where Chang'e 5 landed this time, right next to Aristarchus Crater. An open space.

The reason why we chose this place is because Aristarchus Crater is located to the east of Herodotus Crater and Schrotli Valley, and to the north is a series of winding and narrow Aristarchus Streams.

It has typical landforms on the moon, including mesas and craters. A Charlotte Valley canyon traverses 160 kilometers on the mesas, which is of great research value. It can be said that basically all geological phenomena on the moon can be understood in this place. .

This is very beneficial to China, which has low aerospace technology at this stage, cannot stay on the moon for a long time, and has difficulty moving on the moon.

This is also the youngest of all lunar craters, so that the solar wind has not yet completely weathered away the material dug out by the impact, so the minerals exposed at the bottom of the 3.2-kilometer-deep Aristarchus crater layers of material that could provide scientists with a unique opportunity to study the diversity of lunar rocks and geological processes.

One of the missions of Chang'e-5 is pit bottom sampling. If actual conditions permit, then this lunar landing mission can bring back lunar rock samples 3 kilometers deep on the moon.

Moreover, the albedo of this crater is nearly twice that of other terrain features on the lunar surface. It can almost be seen with the naked eye. The intensity of reflected light under a large telescope is even more dazzling. It is considered to be the most conspicuous large-scale surface mark on the lunar surface. one. Even when most of the Moon's surface is illuminated by Earth's illumination, Aristarchus Crater can be identified without difficulty.

This extremely high albedo and recognition will also allow it to frequently report some UFO incidents. Therefore, in a pragmatic attitude, since China has the ability to come up, it should also clarify this when doing scientific research, right? Well.

And...this is the landing site for the United States' plan to return to the moon in 2020.

Of course, of course, this area is actually very large. After the American moon landing spacecraft arrives, it will not coincide with the Chinese detection site at all.

With the current technology of the earth, even if it sends dozens of lunar landing ships, it will not be able to complete the detection. Therefore, it is not that China does not give face to the United States, but it simply feels that the cost-effectiveness of landing here is very high.

The United States certainly thinks so when it chooses this place to be the landing site for returning to the moon. This is a typical example of "the eagle and the rabbit see the same thing."

Yes, it is like that.

At this time, a simple lunar rover was being driven by Ye Peng at a high speed of 20 kilometers per hour. The lunar soil dust carried by the wheels flew out and fell quickly. There was no dust in this dusty place. There was a scene of smoke and dust billowing behind the car.

Looking in the direction of the car, the long ruts are clearly visible.

Although the speed of 20 kilometers per hour is not worth mentioning on the earth, let alone high speed, considering the complex terrain on the moon, even this speed is considered to be very fast on the moon.

And this speed can only be achieved on a relatively flat moon surface. In places where the terrain is undulating or complex, the speed will be even lower.

"Breathe...breathe...breathe...breathe..."

It is very quiet here. Even the lunar rover they drive is an electric vehicle and is also very quiet. The loudest sound they can hear is each other's breathing coming from the call system.

A simple bracket at the front of the car is equipped with an instrument panel. Ye Peng is the driver, and his side displays data such as speed, direction, slope, power, and temperature.

On Wang Ping's side is a ten-inch display screen, which is the on-board map on the car. It displays a clear map of the moon and the markings of their mission location.

Just this point completely destroyed the navigation system of the manned lunar rover during the Apollo period.

"Ye Peng, you can stop at the big rock in front. That is our mission location." Wang Ping said while looking at the mission map.

"Understood, Commander," Ye Peng replied and slowly reduced the speed of the car.

"Sun Wei, this is the Chang'e-5 lunar rover. Is there any problem on the track?" Wang Ping asked again.

"No problem, everything is normal, commander." said Sun Wei, who was circling in the lunar orbit.

They are busy on the lunar surface, and Sun Wei is not idle in the lunar orbit. Although he cannot participate in the field survey of the lunar surface, there are still a lot of experiments to be done in the lunar orbit.

Many of the scientific instruments carried by Shenzhou 13 were prepared for him. At the same time, he also had to ensure the normal operation of the spacecraft in the lunar orbit and ensure that the Chang'e 5 lunar module could successfully dock when it returned.

"Commander, the mission location has arrived." Ye Peng slowly stopped in the driveway.

"Well," Wang Ping got out of the car and said, "You go and plug in the permanent detector, and I'll collect the moon rocks. We have one hour."

"Then we will go to the crater to see if the road found by the lunar probe can be used. If so, we will carry out a crater bottom sampling mission tomorrow."

"Okay, no problem, one hour is enough." Ye Peng agreed.

Ye Peng and Wang Ping jumped to the back of the car. There was a storage box here, and everything they needed was here.

Ye Peng took out the detection equipment to be deployed and went to the deployment site, while Wang Ping took the sampling equipment and went to the large piece of lunar rock exposed outside the lunar soil.

Both of them moved very quickly. Although they were restrained by spacesuits, these not-so-difficult things still couldn't trouble them.

Relatively speaking, Wang Ping has a little more work. The moon rock needs to be cut with an electric saw, otherwise such a large piece cannot be taken away. Moreover, the cut moon rock must be put into the corresponding bag, and then returned. It has to be put into a special storage box.

So after Ye Peng fixed the equipment, turned on its own solar panels, and debugged the operating data, he came to help Wang Ping.

"...Okay, the last piece is installed, let's go to the crater."

"Okay, I'll put the stone back in the car..."

…………

This time, Chang'e-5 stayed on the moon for a total of five days, collected a total of 278 kilograms of lunar rocks, and conducted various scientific research activities. It can be said that it successfully completed its mission.

And it refreshed many records set during the Apollo moon landing, and improved the new record a lot.

If the United States wants to overtake the lead again, it must work hard.

When they left the moon, they left the lunar rover and landing bracket on the moon to reduce weight, and abandoned the Chang'e-5 lunar landing and return module in the lunar orbit. As expected, the "Chang'e" eventually Will go back to the moon.

After more than sixty hours of flight, they successfully returned to Earth and landed on the predetermined sea surface. The "Capital" nuclear-powered electromagnetic catapult aircraft carrier that had been waiting there quickly dispatched a helicopter to take them back to the ship.

At this point, China's first manned mission to the moon was a complete success.