China will attempt to land an exploratory craft on the moon for the first time in 2013, state media reported, according to the telegraph.com.
China’s third lunar probe will blast off in the second half of 2013, the state Xinhua news agency reported late on Monday. Other reports said it would land and transmit back a survey of the moon’s surface.
If successful, the landing would be China’s first on the lunar surface and mark a new milestone in its space development. It is part of a project to orbit, land on and return from the moon, Xinhua said.
China said in its last white paper on space it was working towards landing a man on the moon, although it has not given a time frame.
China’s ambitious space program has included launching a female astronaut into space in June for the first time. Liu Yang was among the astronauts on the Shenzhou-9, which was on a mission to the Tiangong 1 module, a prototype for a future space station, according to the New York Times.
The station is expecting to be in orbit by 2020. China is testing a new rocket, a next-generation booster that will aid in the station and moon exploration, according to msnbc.com.
The new liquid oxygen (LOX) and kerosene engine is being designed for China’s planned Long March 5 rocket, which will be more powerful than the current Long March 2F rockets that have been used to launch a space lab test module and an astronaut crew on missions to test docking technologies in low-Earth orbit, according to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency.
… According to Chinese media reports, the Long March 5 rocket will be able to launch a 25-ton spacecraft or satellite into low-Earth orbit, or launch a 14-ton payload into geostationary orbit.
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