China's second lunar probe enters moon orbit: media

Oct 09, 2010
The first lunar probe, launched in October 2007, was in orbit for 16 months Enlarge
The launch pad at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Xichang, southwest China's Sichuan province. China's second lunar probe entered the moon's orbit, eight days after the Long March 3C rocket carrying the Chang'e-2 blasted off from the launch centre, state media reported.

China's second lunar probe entered the moon's orbit on Saturday, eight days after the Long March 3C rocket carrying the Chang'e-2 blasted off from the launch centre, state media reported.

The unmanned probe will start "scientific exploration activities soon," said the official Xinhua news agency, citing the Beijing Aerospace Control Center.

The Chang'e-2 will first circle the moon at a distance of 100 kilometres (62 miles). The plan is for it to drop into orbit 15 kilometres from the moon's surface.

It will conduct various tests over a six-month period in preparation for the expected launch in 2013 of the Chang'e-3, which China hopes will be its first unmanned landing on the moon.

The Chang'e programme, named after a mythical Chinese goddess who flew to the moon, is seen as an effort to put China's programme on a par with those of the United States and Russia.

The first , launched in October 2007, was in orbit for 16 months.

Beijing hopes to bring a sample back to in 2017, with a manned mission pencilled in for around 2020, according to state media.

Explore further: NASA head views progress on asteroid lasso mission

add to favorites email to friend print save as pdf

Related Stories

China preps next lunar space mission

Sep 10, 2010

China is on track to launch its second lunar satellite by year's end, as the country pursues its plans for a manned mission to the moon by 2020, state media said Friday.

China launches second lunar probe (Update 2)

Oct 01, 2010

China on Friday celebrated 61 years of communist rule with the launch of its second lunar probe -- the next step in its ambitious programme to become the second country to put a man on the moon.

Recommended for you

NASA head views progress on asteroid lasso mission

11 hours ago

Surrounded by engineers, NASA chief Charles Bolden inspected a prototype spacecraft engine that could power an audacious mission to lasso an asteroid and tow it closer to Earth for astronauts to explore.

Ecuador satellite collides with Russian space junk

11 hours ago

A small Ecuadoran satellite collided in orbit with the remains of a Russian rocket, but it is too soon to know how much damage it might have sustained, Quito's space agency said Thursday.

Forecast for Titan: Wild weather could be ahead

May 22, 2013

(Phys.org) —Saturn's moon Titan might be in for some wild weather as it heads into its spring and summer, if two new models are correct. Scientists think that as the seasons change in Titan's northern hemisphere, ...

SDO observes mid-level solar flare

May 22, 2013

UPDATE 16:30 p.m. EDT: The M7-class flare was also associated with a coronal mass ejection or CME, another solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of particles into space. While this CME was not Ea ...

User comments : 9

Adjust slider to filter visible comments by rank

Display comments: newest first

LariAnn
2.3 / 5 (3) Oct 09, 2010
At the rate China's Moon program is going, perhaps when tourists travel to the Moon for vacation in the future, they will have to learn Chinese in order to communicate with the staff there!
Sonhouse
not rated yet Oct 09, 2010
I wonder if that probe would be able to take pictures of the Apollo landing sites with enough resolution to image the footprints, which would lay to rest the moon landing deniers.
SteveL
not rated yet Oct 09, 2010
If they do, I would hope they would fence off and protect the area to show future humans that a once great civilization named "America" once landed there. At the rate NASA is going, our memories will be all we'll have left to comfort us in our decline.

I don't blame NASA, but I do blame the bozo's on the hill and in the Oral office who throw money at everything but a program that would provide vaulable, high quality engineering and scientific jobs, and hope for our species.
ShotmanMaslo
1 / 5 (1) Oct 09, 2010
I wonder if that probe would be able to take pictures of the Apollo landing sites with enough resolution to image the footprints, which would lay to rest the moon landing deniers.


They would just claim it was photoshopped anyway..
Quantum_Conundrum
1 / 5 (1) Oct 09, 2010
Sonhouse:

The rovers, flag, descent stage of the each of 6 landing modules, and are few other scientific instruments are still there. Photos of these should convince even the biggest skeptic.
plasticpower
5 / 5 (3) Oct 09, 2010
Didn't the Indian moon orbiter take photos of this already? I don't understand why people still think it's a conspiracy. THE US LANDED ON THE MOON. Why would the Soviets broadcast it on national TV if THEY didn't believe it? I'm Russian, and I believe the US landed on the moon.
frajo
5 / 5 (2) Oct 09, 2010
At the rate China's Moon program is going, perhaps when tourists travel to the Moon for vacation in the future, they will have to learn Chinese in order to communicate with the staff there!
Which of the 13 mutually unintelligible sub-languages of Chinese do you propose to learn?
_ilbud
not rated yet Oct 10, 2010
Mandarin would be best but google.lun would be able to provide realtime translation. I believe trepanning works fine on the moon hoax goons.
Skeptic_Heretic
4 / 5 (4) Oct 10, 2010
I wonder if that probe would be able to take pictures of the Apollo landing sites with enough resolution to image the footprints, which would lay to rest the moon landing deniers.

It appears that nothing will stop the moon landing deniers. We have active scientific equipment on the moon that anyone can use with a powerful enough laser. We placed multiple reflectors on the moon so that we could measure distance. We use them often to calculate the movements of the moon against the movements of the Earth. They can do this themselves if they were so inclined. Stupid people, who think we're making up the science we've done, will always insist we're making it up. ie: the evolution argument.

More news stories

A hidden population of exotic neutron stars

(Phys.org) —Magnetars – the dense remains of dead stars that erupt sporadically with bursts of high-energy radiation - are some of the most extreme objects known in the Universe. A major campaign using ...

Hubble reveals the ring nebula's true shape

(Phys.org) —The Ring Nebula's distinctive shape makes it a popular illustration for astronomy books. But new observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope of the glowing gas shroud around an old, dying, ...

NASA head views progress on asteroid lasso mission

Surrounded by engineers, NASA chief Charles Bolden inspected a prototype spacecraft engine that could power an audacious mission to lasso an asteroid and tow it closer to Earth for astronauts to explore.

Controlling mood through the motions of mitochondria

(Medical Xpress)—Regulating the distribution of power in neurons is done by a system that makes the national electric grid look simple by comparison. Each neuron has several thousand mitochondria confined ...

A quantum simulator for magnetic materials

Physicists understand perfectly well why a fridge magnet sticks to certain metallic surfaces. But there are more exotic forms of magnetism whose properties remain unclear, despite decades of intense research. ...