To the Moon and Mars

Abstract

The Chinese Moon program began in the 1990s with studies under ‘project 863’. China eventually launched its first Moon probe, Chang e 1, in 2007 at a time of a three-sided Asian race to the Moon with Japan and India. Chang e 1 made Moon maps and was followed by Chang e 2, which dived low over the lunar surface to scout landing sites but then left the Moon, flew to the L2 libration point and then set out across the solar system for a spectacular interception of asteroid Toutatis. Then came Chang e 3 which soft-landed in the Mare Imbrium in 2013, deploying a rover, Yutu. Although the rover’s wheels stuck after a month, there was a big scientific return from the mission thanks to a lunar telescope, chemical analysis and subsoil radar mapping. It was followed by the Chang e 5 T1 which, as a rehearsal for the Moon rock mission (Chang e 5), looped around the Moon, came back to Earth to send a lander through reentry for recovery in inner Mongolia and then returned to the Moon, an unprecedented feat in robotic exploration. Eventually, China will establish a lunar base, for which an Earthbound model has already been tested, the Yuegong. China’s sights are also set on Mars. As far back as 2011, China attempted to get a probe into orbit around Mars, the Yinghuo, piggybacking on a failed Russian mission, but China will launch its own Mars probe in 2020, which will pave the way for further missions across the solar system. This chapter tells the story.