The first moon mission after years of pause

[link to www.nature.com]

...Chang’e-3 is slated as the first step of China’s second phase of exploration. The probe is expected to launch from the Xichang launch centre in Sichuan province in December.

If the mission launches on 1 December, Chang’e-3 could enter into lunar orbit on 6 December, says Foing. The probe could then land in Sinus Iridum in the Moon’s mid-latitudes on 16 December. Also known as the Bay of Rainbows, this location is close to where the Soviet Lunokhod-1 mission trundled in 1970–71, and on the opposite side of the great Mare Imbrium basin from where the US Apollo 15 mission landed , see ‘Lunar leap’:
[link to www.nature.com]
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Depending on what happens with Chang’e-3, the National Space Administration may launch an almost identical rover and lander pair — Chang’e-4 — to another spot on the lunar surface. Beyond that, the third and final phase of China’s lunar-exploration programme calls for a robotic mission to bring back samples of lunar material, probably in 2017–18.

Space analysts expect that the lunar and crewed objectives of China’s space-flight programme will merge, with Chinese astronauts (known as taikonauts) aiming to walk on the Moon some time in the 2020s. China’s plans are notable for their long-term outlook — not so easy to implement in a democracy — and for proceeding incrementally, says Joan Johnson-Freese, an analyst at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. “They have a long laid-out programme of very careful steps, but they are taking bigger steps with each flight,” she says.
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