The Chang’e 5 T1 spacecraft returned to Earth on 31 October 2014. The re-entry capsule of Chang’e 5-T1 made a successful double skip re-entry and landed at 2242 GMT in the northern region of Inner Mongolia.
On its eight-day mission, the spacecraft conducted a lunar fly-by, with a periselene of 13000 km. During the flight the spacecraft managed to take one of the best space images of the year of Earth and the rear side of the Moon in the same shot.
After looping around the moon, the craft returned to Earth, re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere at a superorbital speed of 11 km/s. The skip-re-entry reduced the peak heating and increases re-entry range compared with a straight ballistic re-entry. The re-entry test craft carried some bacteria and plants to test the radiation environment during the flight. However the mission was primarily to test the re-entry capsule, its heat shield and re-entry method which required a 0.5 degree accuracy to be a success. This re-entry method and capsule are to be used on the main Chang’e 5 mission which will use a lander to recover a sample of lunar soil. This will then be launched back to Earth.
