On December 2, 2013, China launched the Chang’e-3 lunar probe with the country’s first moon rover aboard early on Monday, marking a significant step toward deep space exploration.
The probe’s carrier, an enhanced Long March-3B rocket, blasted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China at 1:30 a.m.
Chang’e-3 is expected to land on the moon in mid-December to become China’s first spacecraft to soft land on the surface of an extraterrestrial body.
It is also the first moon lander launched in the 21st century.
The probe entered the earth-moon transfer orbit as scheduled, with a perigee of 200 kilometers and apogee of 380,000 kilometers.
“The probe has already entered the designated orbit,” said Zhang Zhenzhong, director of the launch center in Xichang. “I now announce the launch was successful.”
“We will strive for our space dream as part of the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation,” he said.
The Chang’e-3 will lay a solid foundation for manned lunar orbit mission and manned lunar landing. China has not revealed the roadmap for its manned mission to land on the moon.
So far, only the United States and the former Soviet Union have soft landed on the moon.
Chang’e-3, comprising a lander and a moon rover called “Yutu” (Jade Rabbit), presents a modern scientific version of an ancient Chinese myth that a lady called Chang’e, after swallowing magic pills, took her pet “Yutu” to fly toward the moon, where she became a goddess, and has been living there with the white rabbit ever since.
Source:Xinhuanet
