China Aims for the Moon Planned Launch of Lunar Rover Follows a String of Triumphs for the Country’S Space Programme

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Preparing for lift-off: China displays a model of the Yutu rover that it plans to send to explore the Moon in December.

SPACE China aims for the Moon Planned launch of lunar rover follows a string of triumphs for the country’s space programme.

BY ALEXANDRA WITZE China’s methodical and almost flawless space the Chinese a rising or emerging space power programme. The country has achieved a string any more,” says Bernard Foing, a lunar scientist ext month, a Chinese spacecraft called of triumphs in crewed space flight over the past at the European Space Agency in Noordwijk, Chang’e-3 is scheduled to use braking decade, including putting humans into orbit the Netherlands. “They have shown they are rockets to lower itself gently onto the and docking two craft in space. China lost its very advanced.” Nplains of Sinus Iridum, a broad swathe of lava first and only Mars probe soon after launch The roots of China’s lunar programme trace flows on the near side of the Moon. The probe in 2011, but both of its lunar orbiters flew back to the early 1990s, when money began will then roll out a six-wheeled rover — the first successfully. to flow into work on crewed space flights and machinery to explore the Moon’s surface since If Chang’e-3 lands safely on the Moon, China space scientists pushed for a parallel pro- 1976, when the Soviet Luna 24 mission scooped will join the Soviet Union and the United States gramme in lunar exploration. The result was up a handful of soil and flew it back to Earth. as the only nations to have successfully landed a schedule of missions named after Chang’e, a The landing would be the latest step in exploratory spacecraft there. “You cannot call luminescent Moon goddess.

Chang’e-1, an orbiter launched in 2007 Johnson-Freese, an analyst at the US Naval by the Beijing-based China National Space LUNAR LEAP War College in Newport, Rhode Island. “They Administration, mapped the entire Moon China plans to launch its rst lunar rover, Chang’e-3, have a long laid-out programme of very care- before it was deliberately crashed into the lunar next month, following in the footsteps of the US ful steps, but they are taking bigger steps with Surveyor and Apollo programmes and Soviet Luna surface in 2009. Chang’e-2, launched in 2010, and Lunokhod missions in the 1960s and 1970s. each flight,” she says. made higher-resolution maps before moving For the moment, those steps surpass what on to fly past the asteroid Toutatis, which it did any other country is doing. South Korea last December. recently announced that it would send an Chang'e-3 Chang’e-3 is slated as the first step of landing site uncrewed lander to the Moon in 2020 (see China’s second phase of exploration. The Nature http://doi.org/p6h; 2013), but probe is expected to launch from the those plans — like others — remain Xichang launch centre in Sichuan just that, plans. Russia is consider- Lunokhod-1 province in December. ing the development of a series If the mission launches on of orbiters and landers, and 1 December, Chang’e-3 could Apollo 15 Japan has discussed a lander enter into lunar orbit on and rover, but schedules and 6 December, says Foing. The budgets remain unclear. The probe could then land in United States has nothing Sinus Iridum in the Moon’s lined up to follow its two cur- mid-latitudes on 16 Decem- rent Moon orbiters, the Lunar ber. Also known as the Bay Reconnaissance Orbiter and AND MAP DIVISION GEOGRAPHY OF CONGRESS, LIBRARY SOURCE: NASA; MOON IMAGE: of Rainbows, this location the Lunar Atmosphere and is close to where the Soviet Dust Environment Explorer Lunokhod-1 mission trun- (LADEE) that is studying dust dled in 1970–71, and on the in the atmosphere. opposite side of the great Mare In fact, LADEE faces a chal- Imbrium basin from where the lenge when Chang’e-3 arrives at US Apollo 15 mission landed (see the Moon. The Chinese orbiter is ‘Lunar leap’). expected to release large amounts of “There’s nothing particularly inter- exhaust gases when it enters lunar orbit, esting about the spot, but it is a place we which LADEE will have to sort through haven’t been to before,” says Paul Spudis, a to separate from naturally occurring dust. Moon researcher at the Lunar and Planetary But NASA scientists cannot work on this task Institute in Houston, Texas. Sinus Iridum is also Locations of Moon landings directly with those overseeing Chang’e-3 in a fairly safe place to land, with flat plains and Soviet Union United States China Beijing because legislation pushed through relatively few boulders. by US Representative Frank Wolf (Republi- If Chang’e-3 makes it to the surface, the can, Virginia) forbids bilateral collaboration lander portion will remain in one spot, kept Peking University in Beijing. between the US agency and Chinese scientists. warm during the frigid lunar nights by a radi- Depending on what happens with Chang’e-3, However, others are moving forward with oactive heat source. It will survey Earth, the the National Space Administration may launch international agreements. The Paris-based Milky Way and the rest of the sky with the first an almost identical rover and lander pair — European Space Agency will hold a meeting near-ultraviolet telescope ever deployed on the Chang’e-4 — to another spot on the lunar sur- in February in Chengdu, China, to explore Moon, which will help astronomers to observe face. Beyond that, the third and final phase of possible future joint missions involving the the birth and death of stars. China’s lunar-exploration programme calls for Chinese National Space Science Center in Bei- The solar-powered, 100-kilogram rover — a robotic mission to bring back samples of lunar jing, which oversees the country’s space-science named Yutu, or ‘jade rabbit’ — is expected to material, probably in 2017–18. research. The two have already collaborated on explore the vicinity. Panoramic and other cam- Space analysts expect that the lunar and one satellite project: the Cluster/Double Star eras will photograph the surroundings, and an crewed objectives of China’s space-flight pro- mission in 2003–07 to study Earth’s magneto- α-particle X-ray spectrometer on a robotic gramme will merge, with Chinese astronauts sphere. The National Space Science Center is arm will probe the soil’s chemical composi- (known as taikonauts) aiming to walk on the also gearing up to launch China’s first X-ray tion. Ground-penetrating radar will also scan Moon some time in the 2020s. China’s plans satellite in 2015, says its director, Wu Ji. the Moon’s subsurface to depths of 100 metres are notable for their long-term outlook — not “They’re running their own race,” says or more to study soil and rock structures, says so easy to implement in a democracy — and Johnson-Freese. “They’re not looking behind Wenzhe Fa, a remote-sensing specialist at for proceeding incrementally, says Joan them.” ■

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