On Monday, November 23rd at 20:30 UTC, a Long March 6 sent Chang’e 5 on its way to the Moon. The launch took place from LP-101 at the Wenchang SLS, the southernmost launch facility in China.

The goal of the mission is to land a rover in the Mons Rümker region of Oceanus Procellarum on November 27th, retrieve two kilograms of samples from the surface, and transfer the samples to a return vehicle in orbit around the Moon that will then bring the samples back to Earth. The entire mission will take around three weeks from launch to the sample return on December 16th or 17th.

If the mission is successful, this will be the first time samples have been returned from the moon in over forty years.

More Information

CTV article 

Engadget article 

SpaceflightNow article