Chang’e 1 Impacted the Moon Last Sunday
I must be the last one in the world to report this. Anyway, just in case some of you are not aware, the Chinese lunar probe Chang’e 1 crashed onto the Moon last Sunday, March 1.
Don’t worry, nothing went wrong with the probe. The crash was intended – a controlled crash that was designed to accumulate experience for the landing of China’s second lunar probe.
The impact ended the 16-month mission of Chang’e 1, which was launched into space on October 24, 2007. The probe hit the lunar surface somewhere near the equator.
Chang’e 1 was the first phase of China’s three-stage moon mission. The second phase, which is currently in progress, aims at soft landing and the third phase of the mission will see another rover landing on the Moon and bring back mineral samples for scientific research in 2017.
With the crashing of Chang’e 1, the Moon now left with three probes orbiting it: the Indian Chandrayaan-1, the Japanese Kaguya and one of its “baby-satellite”, Ouna. The other baby-satellite of Kaguya, OKINA had impacted the lunar surface last month.
Soon, these probes are going to join by the US Lunar Reconnaissance Orbital (LRO), scheduled for launched end of April. One of its objectives is to find safe landing site and use it as a stepping stone to travel to Mars and beyond.
My Dark Sky 
[…] Few months back, there are 3 spacecrafts orbiting our Moon. Then on March 1, the Chinese probe Chang’e 1 crashed onto the Moon under controlled conditions. Then just last week, on June 10, the Japanese probe Kaguya finished […]
LRO/LCROSS Launched to the Moon « My Dark Sky said this on June 20, 2009 at 4:45 pm |