China yesterday launched an experimental spacecraft set to fly around the moon and back to Earth in preparation for the country’s first uncrewed return trip to the lunar surface.
The eight-day program is a test run for a 2017 mission that aims to have a Chinese spacecraft land on the moon, retrieve samples and return to Earth.
That would make burgeoning space power China only the third country after the US and Russia to have carried out a mission of this type.
The spacecraft lifted off from the southwestern Xichang satellite launch center early yesterday morning, separated from its carrier rocket and entered Earth’s orbit shortly after, the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense reported, according to Xinhua news agency.
China’s lunar exploration program, named Chang’e after a goddess in traditional Chinese mythology, has already launched a pair of orbiting lunar probes and last year landed a craft on the moon with a rover on board.
None of those missions were programmed to return to Earth.
China has also hinted at a possible crewed mission to the moon at a future date if officials decide to combine the human spaceflight and lunar exploration programs.
Xinhua reported the latest mission is to “obtain experimental data and validate re-entry technologies such as guidance, navigation and control, heat shield and trajectory design” for the future moonlander named Chang’e 5.
The spacecraft is to return to Earth using a Soviet-designed method in which it is to first bounce off Earth’s atmosphere in order to slow it down enough to allow it to enter the atmosphere without burning up.
China’s military-backed space program is a source of huge national pride, especially as its series of successful crewed missions have placed up to three astronauts at a time in an experimental orbiting space station.
China sent its first astronaut into space in 2003, becoming the third nation after Russia and the US to achieve crewed space travel independently.
China has powered ahead in a series of methodically timed steps, independent of the US’ program, which is now in its sixth decade of putting people into space and has long-term plans to go to an asteroid and Mars.
Alongside the crewed program, China is also developing the Long March 5, a heavier-lift rocket that is needed to launch a sophisticated space station to be called the Tiangong 2.
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