The Chinese Chang’e 3 mission to the Moon is about to launch. (See earlier posts here and here.) Watch the lift-off of the Long March 5 on Chinese TV webcast.
[ Update: The launch was a success:
The cameras on the stages gave dramatic views of the flight, including the burn of the third stage to send the spacecraft on a trajectory to the Moon. Even after separation of the spacecraft from the third stage, the camera showed the Chang’e 3 – Twitter / SpaceflightNow:
A view of China’s Chang’e 3 lunar lander firing thrusters just after deploying from the Long March upper stage. pic.twitter.com/liqsFN47ET
Update 2: The Chang’e 3 will go into lunar orbit on December 6th and the landing is planned for December 14th.
The Chinese Chang’e 3 lunar lander/rover combo is set to launch this Monday, December 2nd at 1:20 am local time (Sunday, 12:20 pm EST, 5:20 pm GMT) from the the Xichang space center in Sichuan province in southwestern China. It will land on the Moon on December 14th.
The rover is named Yutu or Jade Rabbit (see earlier post here) .
This would be the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon since the Soviet Union put the Luna 24 rover on the Moon in 1976.
The Chinese are expected to launch the Chang’e 3 lunar lander this Sunday, December 1st. This would be the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon since the Soviet Union did it with the Luna 24 rover in 1976.
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Here’s a map of the Moon showing where the landing is expected to occur.
The Chinese space agency held a public contest to name the rover and Yutu or Jade Rabbit was the winner. Yutu was the “legendary companion of the goddess Chang’e”.
On July 19th, China launched three satellites – Shijian 15, Chuangxin 3 and Shiyan 7. Since then they seem to be demonstrating formation flying, satellite servicing and/or anti-satellite techniques but it’s not really clear what they are doing:
