The Chinese rover Yutu, which means jade rabbit, was just launched on a Long March 3B carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center starting the Chang’e 3 mission, which in addition to the rover includes a lander. After about half an hour, lander and rover, after successfully separating from the rocket’s third stage, took the path to the Moon.

The Chinese lunar missions are called Chang’e, like the Chinese Moon goddess. The name of the rover also comes from mythology, in this case not only Chinese but from the Far East in general, and indicates a rabbit that lives on the Moon and for this reason is also called lunar rabbit. In China in particular it was considered to be a companion of the goddess Chang’e.

Previous Chinese lunar missions sent space probes in orbit around the Moon, Chang’e 3 is more ambitious. The insertion in the Moon’s orbit is expected to happen on December 6 while the landing is scheduled for December 14 in a plain of basaltic lava called Sinus Iridum and if all goes well it will be the first spacecraft to land on the Moon since 1976.

The Chang’3 mission is part of the Chinese space program but there will be a collaboration with ESA. In particular, the Kourou station in French Guyana will be used as a relay to receive radio signals and send commands to the spacecraft during its journey. The operations will be coordinated at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, where there’s a group of Chinese engineers.

The lander will begin its analysis of the soil but also to take pictures of the Earth and other celestial bodies, and to observe the sky with its telescope that will be the first lunar observatory. The Yutu rover will detach from the lander to start its own independent exploration of the territory up to a distance of about 10 km. The rover is equipped with a radar that can measure the structure of the lunar soil up to 30 m deep and the crust up to several hundred meters deep.

There was some discussion about the effects of the arrival on the Chinese Moon lander on NASA’s LADEE mission. The lunar atmosphere is extremely tenuous and any landing causes significant interference effects with disturbanced caused by the discharge of the engines and the dust raised. In short, it will change exactly the elements studied by the American probe.

In the end, the mission Chang’e 3 is a very interesting opportunity for the LADEE mission. In fact, the NASA spacecraft will observe how the propellant will be distributed in the lunar exosphere and how it will be subsequently removed. The dust raised by the Chinese lander will allow the LADEE probe to analyze some samples raised up to high altitudes, another positive factor. In short, the opportunities are far greater than the risks.

The Chang’e 3 mission is expected to last at least three months. It’s part of China’s space program, which is making great steps forward with missions that use probes and others with astronauts. If this goes on that way, in the next decade there could be Chinese astronauts on the Moon.

[ad name=”eBayUSUKAstronomy”]