WENCHANG, China • China launched an ambitious mission on Tuesday to bring back material from the moon’s surface for the first time in more than 40 years — an undertaking that could boost human understanding of the moon and of the solar system more generally.

Chang’e 5 — named for the Chinese moon goddess — is the country’s boldest lunar mission yet. If successful, it would be a major advance for China’s space program, and some experts say it could pave the way for bringing samples back from Mars or even a crewed lunar mission. The four modules of the Chang’e 5 spacecraft blasted off Monday atop a massive Long March-5Y rocket from the Wenchang launch center along the coast of the southern island province of Hainan.

The typically secretive administration had previously only confirmed the launch would be in late November. Spacecraft typically take three days to reach the moon. The mission’s key task is to drill almost 7 feet beneath the moon’s surface and scoop up about 4.4 poundsof rocks and other debris to be brought back to Earth, according to NASA. That would offer the first opportunity for scientists to study newly obtained lunar material since the American and Russian missions of the 1960s and 1970s. The Chang’e 5 lander’s time on the moon is scheduled to be short and sweet.

It can only stay one lunar daytime, or about 14 Earth days, because it lacks the radioisotope heating units to withstand the moon’s freezing nights.

Flags with the logo of the Communist Party of China fly in the breeze near a launch pad at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in Wenchang in southern China’s Hainan province, Monday, Nov. 23, 2020. Chinese technicians were making final preparations Monday for a mission to bring back material from the moon’s surface for the first time in nearly half a century — an undertaking that could boost human understanding of the moon and of the solar system more generally. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Mark Schiefelbein