China reports its spacecraft is on the moon

The surface of the moon recedes into darkness in this photo taken by the onboard camera of China’s lunar probe Chang-e 3 and released Saturday by China’s Xinhua News Agency.

The surface of the moon recedes into darkness in this photo taken by the onboard camera of China’s lunar probe Chang-e 3 and released Saturday by China’s Xinhua News Agency.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

China on Saturday became the third country to land a spacecraft on the moon, after its unmanned Chang-e 3 probe settled onto the Bay of Rainbows, state television reported.

photo

AP

Researchers work in the Beijing control room for China’s moon mission in this photo taken Tuesday.

The probe arrived after a 13-day journey from Earth, but no footage of the landing was shown on Chinese state television.

The Chang-e 3 landing craft carried a solar-powered, robotic rover called the Jade Rabbit, or Yutu in Mandarin Chinese, which was to emerge several hours later to begin a three-month exploration of the Bay of Rainbows, or Sinus Iridum, a relatively smooth plain formed from solidified lava. The rover will analyze the topsoil in a previously unexplored region of the moon and collect through its radar system information about the lunar surface to a depth of 100 yards.

The Chang-e 3 , which is designed to remain in place and operate for a year, carries a telescope that will survey space from the moon’s surface and an ultraviolet camera that will observe the Earth. The craft will set up antennas that will transmit pictures back to Earth.

In Chinese legend, Chang-O is a moon goddess accompanied by a Jade Rabbit that can brew potions that give immortality.

The United States and former Soviet Union are the only other countries to have accomplished such a lunar mission - called a “soft landing,” which allows a craft to operate after descending - and 37 years have passed since the last such visit.

At the time of the last soft landing, by the Soviet Union in 1976, Mao Zedong was a month from death and China was in the twilight of his Cultural Revolution. Now China, much richer and stronger, aspires to become a globally respected power, and the government sees a major presence in space as a key to acquiring technological prowess, military strength and status.

But the mission also embodies China’s broader ambitions in space, experts said. The Chang-e 3 mission is to hone technology for future missions, while also exploring. The landing craft appears capable of carrying a payload more than a dozen times the weight of the 309-pound rover, said Paul Spudis, a scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.

“Although it will do some new science, its real value is to flight-qualify a new and potentially powerful lunar surface payload delivery system,” Spudis said.

A later Chang-e mission planned before 2020 is intended to bring back rocks and other samples. The mission will require a much larger craft capable of sending a vehicle back to Earth as well as a more powerful launch rocket, which China is developing.

Some Chinese space engineers have endorsed eventually taking astronauts to the moon and back, which would make China the second country, after the U.S., to achieve that feat.

The nation sent its first astronaut into orbit in 2003 and has since carried out four more manned missions. It conducted its first spacewalk in 2008, decades after the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Chinese state media had earlier described the space program as an element of the “Chinese Dream,” a slogan unveiled by President Xi Jinping that signifies a stronger military and improved livelihoods.

“Compared to the last century’s space race between the United States and the former Soviet Union, mankind’s current return to the moon is more based on curiosity and exploration of the unknown universe,” Sun Huixian, deputy engineer-in-chief of the project, told the official Xinhua News Agency. “China’s lunar program is an important component of mankind’s activities to explore the peaceful use of space.”

A policy paper in 2011 said China would “conduct studies on the preliminary plan for a human lunar landing,” but the government has not made any decision on a manned mission, said Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island who researches the country’s space activities.

“Certainly, they are putting all the building blocks in place so that, if they make that policy decision, they can move forward,” Johnson-Freese said. “But the Chinese are not risk-takers. They are not going to approve that program until they are sure they are capable of all those building blocks.”

“They are taking their time with getting to know about how to fly humans into space, how to build space stations … how to explore the solar system, especially the moon and Mars,” said Peter Bond, consultant editor for Jane’s Space Systems and Industry. “They are making good strides, and I think over the next 10, 20 years they’ll certainly be rivaling Russia and America in this area and maybe overtaking them in some areas.”

Elsewhere in Asia, India last month began a mission to Mars, also seeking to showcase its push for technological development. It plans to put a rocket into orbit around Mars, a feat only the U.S., Europe and Russia have achieved.

Information for this article was contributed by Chris Buckley of The New York Times, Louise Watt of The Associated Press, Liza Lin and Dan Hart of Bloomberg News, and Simon Denyer and Liu Liu of The Washington Post.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/15/2013