For The First Time, China Launches A Moon Rover Mission
Early this morning, China successfully launched what it hopes will become its first rover mission on the moon, the official state news agency Xinhua reported.
The Chang'e-3 lunar probe was launched atop an enhanced Long March-3B rocket and is intended to be the first "soft landing" on the moon since an unmanned Russian mission touched down in 1976. A soft landing means that the vehicle aboard the rocket, named Jade Rabbit, is expected to land on the surface of the moon in about two weeks and begin its exploration of an expanse of hardened lava on the Sinus Iridum crater.
If successful, China would join the U.S. and the former Soviet Union as the only countries to achieve such a landing. USA Today reports:
"While China's space achievements appear to imitate those of the USA and Soviet Union in decades past, they stir considerable pride and nationalism within China, whose government stresses its use of indigenous technology, and peaceful aims in space. Live TV broadcasts showed excited scenes at the launch center, where a reporter from the national broadcaster CCTV embraced one delighted designer.
"Some viewers who stayed up to watch later went online to celebrate.
"'The scientists are so great,' wrote an 'inspired and proud' Wang Wei on Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like micro-blog platform. 'Of course there's still a definite gap from America sending humans to the moon, but this is already amazing,' wrote Wang, an economics professor in east China's Shandong province."