With the lunar probe Chang'e-3's successful touchdown, China has become the third country in history to successfully land on the moon. The first country to achieve this feat was the United States, followed by the former Soviet Union.
The probe landed on the Sinus Iridum, also known as the Bay of Rainbows, which is an area of the moon that is yet to be studied. The landing is expected to bring to light more information about the mysterious area. The maneuver was completed at 8:11am EST, Dec. 14.
The Chang'e 3 lunar program is a 3-stage process which Chinese scientists have termed "cycle, land and return." Before actually attempting a soft landing on the moon, the probe first had to decelerate at a distance of 15km from the moon. Once the deceleration process was completed, the probe then started hovering at an elevation of 100 meters from the lunar surface to conduct tests and checks on the probe's landing mechanisms as well as to determine its proximity to the chosen landing spot. Once the checks were completed, the probe proceeded to descend until it landed on the Sinus Iridum.
Along with China's space agency, international space agencies such as NASA are also excited about the data that the probe will gather. "Scientists using four NASA spacecraft currently studying our lunar neighbor may get an opportunity to gather new data from the expected December 14 landing of the Chang'e 3 lunar rover. U.S. and international researchers view the pending arrival as a new scientific opportunity that could potentially enhance studies and observations of the lunar atmosphere," said NASA in a post on their site.
The Chang'e-3's landing is the first successful moon-landing mission in 37 years since the Soviet Union's last moon mission. The landing also marks China's entry into a very small club of countries that have the ability to land on an extraterrestrial object and explore. To date, there have been over 129 missions to the moon. However, only half of these missions are successful. This emphasizes how difficult it is to plan, execute and complete a lunar landing mission.
