Story highlights
NEW: China launched an unmanned lunar probe Monday
Chang'e-3 will release a solar-powered rover on the moon's surface
The probe may interfere with a NASA lunar dust study, U.S. scientist says
China is launching its first lunar probe in early December, state-run Xinhua news agency reported Tuesday, just over a decade after the country first sent an astronaut into space.
The launch of the unmanned probe took place at 1:30 a.m. Monday (12:30 p.m. ET Sunday), state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The Chang’e-3 blasted off from a Long March 3B rocket in Sichuan province located in southwest China and is expected to land on the moon’s surface in mid-December.
The new space effort comes just over a decade after the country first sent an astronaut into space.
Unlike the soft-landing of the U.S. and the Soviet Union’s unmanned spacecraft, Chang’e-3 will be able to survey the landscape first and determine the safest spot.
Researchers say an impact crater named Sinus Iridum, or Bay of Rainbows, is its likely destination. In 2010, China’s previous lunar mission captured images of the crater while scouting potential landing sites for the 2013 probe.
China sets course for lunar landing this year
On landing, the spacecraft will release Jade Rabbit (called Yutu in Chinese) – a six-wheeled lunar rover equipped with four cameras and two mechanical legs that can dig up soil samples, a designer for the rover told Xinhua earlier this month. A public poll determined the the solar-powered robot’s name, which comes from the white pet rabbit of the Chinese moon godess Chang’e. The slow-moving rover will patrol the moon’s surface for at least three months, according to Xinhua.
Timeline: China’s race into space
In the United States, scientists are concerned the Chinese mission could interfere with a NASA study of the moon’s dust environment. Chang’e-3’s descent is likely to create a noticeable plume on the moon’s surface that could skew the results of research already being carried out by NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), Jeff Plescia, chair of NASA’s Lunar Exploration Analysis Group told Space.com, a space news site.
The mission constitutes the second phase of China’s moon exploration program which includes orbiting, landing and returning to Earth. Earlier missions included plotting a high-resolution, full-coverage lunar map.