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Chinese probe returned from flight around the moon.
10:44
On October 31, 2014 at 22:42 UTC (on November 01 at 06:42 Beijing time) the landing capsule of the Chinese unmanned lunar orbiter performed a successful landing in the China’s remote northern region of Inner Mongolia about 300 miles from Beijing, completing an eight-day test flight around the moon to verify technologies for a planned lunar sample return mission. The mission — nicknamed Xiaofei, or “little flyer” on Chinese social media networks — launched on October 23 from the Xichang space center aboard a Long March 3C rocket. Traveling 840,000 kilometers on the round-trip journey, the spacecraft flew around the far side of the moon and returned a dramatic view of Earth and moon perched in the blackness of space. On the mission’s return leg, the landing capsule separated from a mothership craft for the plunge back into Earth’s atmosphere.
