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China first moon rover "Jade Rabbit" will land on the moon tomorrow

China's first lunar probe to land on the moon this weekend

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China's first lunar rover is expected to land on the moon on Saturday, less than two weeks after it blasted off from Earth, according to Chinese media reports.
The landing will make China one of only three nations -- after the United States and the former Soviet Union -- to "soft-land" on the moon's surface, and the first to do so in more than three decades.

Chang'e-3, the unmanned spacecraft carrying the rover, is due to touch down on a lava plain named Sinus Iridum, or Bay of Rainbows, shortly after 3 p.m. GMT (10 a.m. ET) on December 14, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.

On landing, Chang'e-3 will release Jade Rabbit (called Yutu in Chinese) -- a six-wheeled lunar rover equipped with at least four cameras and two mechanical legs that can dig up soil samples to a depth of 30 meters. The solar-powered rover will patrol the moon's surface, studying the structure of the lunar crust as well as soil and rocks, for at least three months.

The robot's name was decided by a public online poll and comes from a Chinese myth about the pet white rabbit of a goddess, Chang'e, who is said to live on the moon.

Weighing 140 kilograms, the slow-moving rover carries an optical telescope for astronomical observations and a powerful ultraviolet camera that will monitor how solar activity affects the various layers -- troposphere, stratosphere and ionosphere -- that make up the Earth's atmosphere, China's information technology ministry said in a statement.

The Jade Rabbit is also equipped with radioisotope heater units, allowing it to function during the cold lunar nights when temperatures plunge as low as -180°C (-292°F).

China has rapidly built up its space program since it first sent an astronaut into space in 2003. In 2012, the country conducted 18 space launches, according to the Pentagon.

The Chang'e-3 mission constitutes the second phase of China's moon exploration program, which includes orbiting, landing and returning to Earth.

In 2010, China captured images of the landing site for the 2013 probe, the Bay of Rainbows, which is considered to be one of the most picturesque parts of the moon.

Within the next decade, China expects to open a permanent space station in the Earth's orbit.


But scientists in the United States have expressed concern that the Chang'e-3 mission could skew the results of a NASA study of the moon's dust environment. The spacecraft's descent is likely to create a noticeable plume on the moon's surface that could interfere with research already being carried out by NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), Jeff Plescia, chair of NASA's Lunar Exploration Analysis Group told news site, Space.com in November.

The Chang'e-3 spacecraft blasted off from a Long March 3B rocket in China's Sichuan province on December 2, and reached the moon's orbit at 100 kilometers (about 60 miles) from its surface less than five days later.

On Tuesday, it descended into an elliptical orbit with its lowest point just 15 kilometers off the lunar surface, a spokesperson for China's Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense told Xinhua.

China's first lunar probe to land on the moon - CNN.com
 
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China ready to land robot rover on Moon

_71736298_71736262.jpg

The Jade Rabbit, seen in this artist's impression, will be the first wheeled vehicle on the Moon since the 1970s

China is set to land a robotic rover on the surface of the Moon, a major step in the Asian superpower's ambitious programme of space exploration.

On Saturday afternoon (GMT), a landing module will undergo a powered descent, using thrusters to perform the first soft landing on the Moon in 37 years.


Several hours later, the lander will deploy a robotic rover called Yutu, which translates as "Jade Rabbit".

The touchdown will take place on a flat plain called the Bay of Rainbows.

The Chang'e-3 mission launched on a Chinese-developed Long March 3B rocket on 1 December from Xichang in the country's south.

China is saying: 'We are doing something that only two other countries have done before - the US and the Soviet Union

On the evening of December 14, Chang'e-3 will carry out a soft landing on the lunar surface, said a post on the mission's official blog on Sina Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter.

The task was described as the mission's "most difficult" in the post, written by the Chinese Academy of Sciences on behalf of the space authorities.

It is the third robotic rover mission to land on the lunar surface, but the Chinese vehicle carries a more sophisticated payload, including ground-penetrating radar which will gather measurements of the lunar soil and crust.

The 120kg (260lb) Jade Rabbit rover can reportedly climb slopes of up to 30 degrees and travel at 200m (660ft) per hour.

Its name - chosen in an online poll of 3.4 million voters - derives from an ancient Chinese myth about a rabbit living on the moon as the pet of the lunar goddess Chang'e.

_71711842_chinese_moon_landing_624.jpg


According to translated documents, the landing module will begin actively reducing its speed at about 15km from the Moon's surface.

When it reaches a distance of 100m from the surface, the craft will fire thrusters to slow its descent.

At a distance of 4m, the lander switches off the thrusters and free-falls to the lunar surface.

The Jade Rabbit is expected to be deployed on Saturday evening, driving down a ramp lowered by the Chang'e-3 landing module.

Reports suggest the lander and rover will photograph each other at some point on Sunday.


According to Chinese space scientists, the mission is designed to test new technologies, gather scientific data and build intellectual expertise.

Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank in Washington DC, said China's space programme was a good fit with China's concept of "comprehensive national power". This might be described as a measure of a state's all-round capabilities.

Space exploration was, he told BBC News, "a reflection of your economic power, because you need spare resources to have a space programme. It clearly has military implications because so much space technology is dual use".

Mr Cheng explained that the mission would provide an opportunity to test China's deep-space tracking and communications capability.

Such a space observation and tracking system has implications not only for space exploration but for national security, as it can be used to maintain space surveillance, keeping watch over Chinese and other nations' space assets.

The European Space Agency said it would provide communications support on the mission. Erik Sorenson, head of ground facilities at the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, said Esa's tracking facilities would be able to reconstruct the craft's trajectory during descent and determine its precise location on the Moon.

China has been methodically and patiently building up the key elements needed for an advanced space programme - from launchers to manned missions in Earth orbit to unmanned planetary craft - and it is investing heavily.

The lander's target is Sinus Iridum (Latin for Bay of Rainbows) a flat volcanic plain thought to be relatively clear of large rocks. It is part of a larger feature known as Mare Imbrium that forms the right eye of the "Man in the Moon".

After this, a mission to bring samples of lunar soil back to Earth is planned for 2017. And this may set the stage for further robotic missions, and - perhaps - a crewed lunar mission in the 2020s.

Chang'e-3 is probably laying some of the groundwork for a manned mission," said Mr Cheng.

BBC News - China ready to land robot rover on Moon
 
Best of luck.:enjoy:
By the way, take a photo of the India flag which is already there.:p:
 
China ready to land robot rover on Moon

_71736298_71736262.jpg

The Jade Rabbit, seen in this artist's impression, will be the first wheeled vehicle on the Moon since the 1970s

China is set to land a robotic rover on the surface of the Moon, a major step in the Asian superpower's ambitious programme of space exploration.

On Saturday afternoon (GMT), a landing module will undergo a powered descent, using thrusters to perform the first soft landing on the Moon in 37 years.


Several hours later, the lander will deploy a robotic rover called Yutu, which translates as "Jade Rabbit".

The touchdown will take place on a flat plain called the Bay of Rainbows.

The Chang'e-3 mission launched on a Chinese-developed Long March 3B rocket on 1 December from Xichang in the country's south.

China is saying: 'We are doing something that only two other countries have done before - the US and the Soviet Union

On the evening of December 14, Chang'e-3 will carry out a soft landing on the lunar surface, said a post on the mission's official blog on Sina Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter.

The task was described as the mission's "most difficult" in the post, written by the Chinese Academy of Sciences on behalf of the space authorities.

It is the third robotic rover mission to land on the lunar surface, but the Chinese vehicle carries a more sophisticated payload, including ground-penetrating radar which will gather measurements of the lunar soil and crust.

The 120kg (260lb) Jade Rabbit rover can reportedly climb slopes of up to 30 degrees and travel at 200m (660ft) per hour.

Its name - chosen in an online poll of 3.4 million voters - derives from an ancient Chinese myth about a rabbit living on the moon as the pet of the lunar goddess Chang'e.

_71711842_chinese_moon_landing_624.jpg


According to translated documents, the landing module will begin actively reducing its speed at about 15km from the Moon's surface.

When it reaches a distance of 100m from the surface, the craft will fire thrusters to slow its descent.

At a distance of 4m, the lander switches off the thrusters and free-falls to the lunar surface.

The Jade Rabbit is expected to be deployed on Saturday evening, driving down a ramp lowered by the Chang'e-3 landing module.

Reports suggest the lander and rover will photograph each other at some point on Sunday.


According to Chinese space scientists, the mission is designed to test new technologies, gather scientific data and build intellectual expertise.

Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank in Washington DC, said China's space programme was a good fit with China's concept of "comprehensive national power". This might be described as a measure of a state's all-round capabilities.

Space exploration was, he told BBC News, "a reflection of your economic power, because you need spare resources to have a space programme. It clearly has military implications because so much space technology is dual use".

Mr Cheng explained that the mission would provide an opportunity to test China's deep-space tracking and communications capability.

Such a space observation and tracking system has implications not only for space exploration but for national security, as it can be used to maintain space surveillance, keeping watch over Chinese and other nations' space assets.

The European Space Agency said it would provide communications support on the mission. Erik Sorenson, head of ground facilities at the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, said Esa's tracking facilities would be able to reconstruct the craft's trajectory during descent and determine its precise location on the Moon.

China has been methodically and patiently building up the key elements needed for an advanced space programme - from launchers to manned missions in Earth orbit to unmanned planetary craft - and it is investing heavily.

The lander's target is Sinus Iridum (Latin for Bay of Rainbows) a flat volcanic plain thought to be relatively clear of large rocks. It is part of a larger feature known as Mare Imbrium that forms the right eye of the "Man in the Moon".

After this, a mission to bring samples of lunar soil back to Earth is planned for 2017. And this may set the stage for further robotic missions, and - perhaps - a crewed lunar mission in the 2020s.

Chang'e-3 is probably laying some of the groundwork for a manned mission," said Mr Cheng.

BBC News - China ready to land robot rover on Moon

Are they gonna release Some pics
When the rover lands
& since the rover is yet to land all the best
 
:bunny:....Its the Rabbit to Moon.

Go Jade Rabbit. :china:
 
Hearty congratulations to whole Chinese nation on occasion of this great accomplishment !!!
 

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