China launches its first lunar rover

BBC : On 1 December at 17:30 GMT, China launched its Chang’e 3 lunar exploration mission onboard a Chang Zheng (“Long March”) 3B rocket. The first two Chang’e missions (named for the Chinese goddess of the Moon) were orbiter missions. Chang’e 3 carries a lunar lander and Yutu (“Jade Rabbit”), a 120-kg rover, which gets its name from a mythical rabbit that lived on the Moon. The rover, designed by the Shanghai Aerospace Systems Engineering Research Institute, can climb 30° slopes, travels 200 m per hour, and carries ground-penetrating radar and other instruments to study the Moon’s surface. The mission is scheduled to land mid-December in Sinus Iridum , a flat volcanic plain in the northern hemisphere. If successful, it will represent another step in China’s growing presence in space. The country has announced plans to send manned missions to the Moon and to establish a permanently manned space station in Earth orbit.