Cosmic Penguin

The Chang'e-5 lunar sample return mission is pretty complicated. The spacecraft has a lot of sub-pieces and the mission has a lot of phases. I am going to take a deep breath and summarize what I believe the scenario to be. First, the Lego pieces (abbreviations are mine):

SM: Service module DS: Descent stage (lander) AS: Ascent stage AD: Adapter DA: Docking adapter RV: Reentry vehicle

At launch, the stack has the AS on top of the DS on top of the AD on top of the SM, wit the DA on top of the RV sitting on the SM inside the AD.

The phases: 1) Possibly, phasing Earth orbits prior to translunar injection (awaiting clarification). 2) Translunar injection and coast 3) Lunar orbit insertion, maybe to elliptical orbit. 4) Lunar orbit manuevers to low circular lunar orbit. (continued)..

5) DS+AS separate from SM+AD, in lunar orbit. 6) AD is ejected from SM, revealing DA+RV attached to SM. AD remains in lunar orbit. 7) DS+AS land on Moon and obtain sample, placed in AS 8) AS takes off, leaving DS on moon. (continued)

9) AS enters lunar orbit and makes rendezvous burns 10) AS docks with the DA on the SM 11) DA mechanism transfers sample from AS to RV 12) AS+DA ejected from the SM+RV. AS+DA remain in lunar orbit. (continued)

13) SM+RV move to elliptical lunar orbit. 14) SM makes trans-earth insertion burn 15) SM+RV trans-earth coast. 16) RV separates from SM (continued)

17) SM *either* burns up on Earth atmo entry *or* performs avoidance burn to begin new extended mission. 18) RV hypervelocity atmo entry, jettison aeroshell, deploy parachute, lands in China (Inner Mongolia province). (continued)