Ascender lifts off with lunar rock samples

In the final leg of the 53-day mission, the orbiter-reentry capsule combination will fly away from the lunar orbit and return to Earth orbit, where the pair will break up. The reentry capsule will then conduct a host of complicated maneuvers to return, as planned, to the Siziwang Banner Landing Site in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

Giuseppe Reibaldi, president and founder of the Moon Village Association, a Vienna-based NGO, and executive secretary of the Global Expert Group on Sustainable Lunar Activities, said this is the first time in human history that samples have been collected from the moon's far side.