Yahoo – AFP,
24 Oct 2014
A rocket carrying an experimental spacecraft intended for the moon and back launches from Xichang space base in China's Sichuan province on October 24, 2014 (AFP Photo) |
Beijing (AFP) - China launched its first space mission to the moon and back early Friday, authorities said, the latest step forward for Beijing's ambitious programme to one day land a Chinese citizen on the Earth's only natural satellite.
The
unnamed, unmanned probe will travel to the moon, fly around it and head back to
Earth, re-entering the atmosphere and landing, the State Administration of
Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND) said in a
statement.
"The
first stage of the first return journey test in China's moon probe programme
has been successful," it said after the launch, from the Xichang space
base in the southwestern province of Sichuan.
The module
will be 413,000 kilometres from Earth at its furthest point on the eight-day
mission, it added.
The
official Xinhua news agency said it would re-enter the atmosphere at 11.2
kilometres per second (25,000 mph) before slowing down -- a process that
generates extremely high temperatures -- and landing in northern China's Inner
Mongolia region.
The mission
is intended to test technology to be used in the Chang'e-5, China's fourth
lunar probe, which aims to gather samples from the moon's surface and will be
launched around 2017, SASTIND said previously.
Beijing sees
its multi-billion-dollar space programme as a marker of its rising global
stature and mounting technical expertise, as well as evidence of the ruling
Communist Party's success in turning around the fortunes of the once
poverty-stricken nation.
The military-run
project has plans for a permanent orbiting station by 2020 and eventually to
send a human to the moon.
China
currently has a rover, the Jade Rabbit, on the surface of the moon.
The craft,
launched as part of the Chang'e-3 lunar mission late last year, has been
declared a success by Chinese authorities, although it has been beset by
mechanical troubles.
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