China launched its first lunar rover Monday morning, in what is being called one giant leap forward for the Asian superpower’s ambitions in space.
The rocket, carrying lander “Chang’e-3” and rover “Jade Rabbit,” blasted off from southwestern China at 1:30 a.m. this morning. The pair, slated to land mid-December in the moon’s Sinus Iridum region (Latin for “Bay of Rainbows”), is tasked with exploring the basaltic lava plain for geological features and mineral deposits, as well as with setting up the first telescope on the moon.
The mission is also expected to preface China’s still unscheduled plans to put one of its astronauts on the moon, as well as to advance its ever grander ambitions in the cosmos, Xinhua, China’s official news agency, said.
"China's space exploration will not stop at the moon," Sun Huixian, deputy engineer-in-chief in charge of the second phase of China's lunar program, told Xinhua. "Our target is deep space."
If all goes as planned, China will be the third country to make a soft landing on the moon (in a soft landing, the craft lands un-damaged). The last mission to make such a landing on the Earth’s natural satellite was a Soviet one in 1976. The US, the second state to perfect a soft moon landing, has not visited the moon’s surface since 1972.
This morning’s mission has, like most Chinese missions to space, been heavily tapestried in tropes that stitch together the patriotic and the mythical. The lander and its rover are named after a Chinese myth in which a woman, Chang'e, swallows magic pills that transport her and her pet rabbit, "Yu Tu” (Jade Rabbit), to the moon. There she remains, white rabbit at her side, as goddess of the moon. Xinhua called the mission “a modern scientific version” of the myth.
"The probe has already entered the designated orbit," said Zhang Zhenzhong, director of the launch center in Xichang, Xinhua reported. "I now announce the launch was successful."
"We will strive for our space dream as part of the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation," he said.
Just how close China is to overtaking space superpowers US and Russia in a space race is unclear. So far, China’s successes in space have not gone beyond what the US and Russia have already achieved. India, China’s main competitor in Asia, has not landed on the moon but did send its first orbiter to Mars last month. The state reported just one day before China’s moon launch that its craft had cleared Earth’s orbit.-- Source: Christian Science Monitor