Backup storage facility for moon materials opens in Mao's hometown

A backup storage facility for lunar samples retrieved during China's Chang'e 5 robotic mission was put into service on Saturday in the hometown of late Chairman Mao Zedong.

Samples were handed over to Hunan University at a ceremony on Saturday in Shaoshan, Hunan province, where Mao, one of the founding fathers of the Communist Party of China and the People's Republic of China, grew up.

They will be kept at a backup storage facility on Tiane Mountain built and operated by the university, according to the China National Space Administration.

Construction of the facility was approved in 2014 and completed in July. In November, it passed a qualification inspection and was certified to operate, the space administration said in a statement.

Zhang Kejian, head of the administration, said at the ceremony that keeping the backup samples in Mao's hometown will serve as a remembrance of the late chairman and his hopes for China's space industry, and it will also help represent the nation's achievements in space programs and popularize space learning.

Experts taking part in the selection of the facility's location said that Tiane Mountain was chosen because it has a very stable geological structure and has never had rockfalls or landslides.

The Chang'e 5 robotic mission was launched on Nov 24 last year at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in South China's Hainan province and successfully landed on the moon eight days later.

The mission was the most significant event in China's space industry in 2020 and one of the world's most notable space-related events that year, as the probe became the world's third spacecraft to touch down on the lunar surface in the 21st century after its two Chinese predecessors－Chang'e 3 and 4.

The landmark mission brought 1,731 grams of lunar rocks and soil back to Earth on Dec 17 last year, the first to do so since lunar materials were last hauled to Earth from its nearest celestial neighbor in 1976 by the former Soviet Union.

The 23-day mission was one of the nation's most sophisticated and challenging space endeavors, and it made China just the third country in history to get materials from the moon, after the US and the Soviet Union.

Chang'e 5's orbiter is now flying around Lagrange Point 1, which is located between the Earth and the sun and is an ideal position for monitoring solar activities, for extended scientific operations.