China’s lunar orbiter returns to earth after flying around the moon in a test run

In a first of its kind space mission for the country, China recovered an experimental space craft that flew around the moon and back in a test run, AP reported.

The eight-day trip that ended early today marked the first time in almost four decades that a spacecraft had returned to earth after travelling around the moon.

China plans to send a spacecraft to the moon in 2017 and return it to earth after collecting soil samples.

The success of the mission would make China only the third country after the US and Russia to carry out such a mission.

Under its lunar exploration programme, China had already launched a pair of orbiting lunar probes and in 2013 landed a craft on the moon with a rover onboard.

China today successfully completed its first return mission to the moon with its unmanned orbiter landing back on earth, becoming only the third country in the world to do so after the former Soviet Union and the US accomplished the feat about 40 years ago, Xinhua reported.

Taking the country's space progamme a step forward, the test lunar orbiter landed in Siziwang Banner of China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region early this morning over a week after its launch to test its ability to orbit the moon and return to earth.

According to Xinhua news agency, the orbiter was recovered by search teams at the designated landing area, about 500 kilometres away from Beijing.

The Soviet Union undertook the last mission of the kind in the 1970s.

Launched on Friday last week, the orbiter during its 840,000 kilometres journey over an eight-day period took some fabulous pictures of the earth and moon together, according to the report.

The re-entry process started around 6:13 am (local time) with the orbiter approaching the earth at a velocity of about 11.2 kilometres per second and the high speed caused a lot of friction between the orbiter and air. The high temperatures on the exterior of the craft, generated an ion sheath that cut off contact between ground command and the orbiter.

The slowing down was achieved by ''bouncing'' the craft off the edge of the atmosphere, before re-entering again.

The ''bounce'' was one of the biggest challenges of the mission and it was crucial for the success of the mission for the craft to enter the atmosphere at a very precise angle.

A 0.2 degrees error would have rendered the mission a failure, according to Zhou Jianliang, chief engineer with the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Centre.