After India’s successful Mars mission,
China launched its first space mission to the moon and back early on Friday. The
unnamed, unmanned probe will travel to the moon, fly around it and head back to
Earth, re-entering the atmosphere and landing, the State Administration of
Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND) said in a
statement.
Launch of the Chang’e-5-T1 mission took
place at 1800UTC, utilizing a Long March-3C/G2 launch vehicle from the LC2
launch complex of the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, Sichuan Province. The
mission is aimed at testing the technologies that are vital for the success of
the future Chang’e-5 sample return probe.
In another flagship mission for the
Chinese, the orbiter will head into Lunar Transfer Orbit (LTO), before
performing a flyby around the Moon and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere after a
9 day flight.
The module will be 413,000 kilometres
from Earth at its furthest point on the eight-day mission, it added.
Beijing sees its multi-billion-dollar
space programme as a marker of its rising global stature and mounting technical
expertise, as well as evidence of the ruling Communist Party's success in
turning around the fortunes of the once poverty-stricken nation.
The military-run project has plans for a permanent orbiting station by 2020 and eventually to send a human to the moon. China currently has a rover, the Jade Rabbit, on the surface of the moon.
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