China Targets 2013 for Launch of Lunar Landing Mission
Under a new five-year plan unveiled in December, China will continue to make methodical progress in human spaceflight, expand its satellite navigation system, explore the moon and seek space technology partnerships with developing nations.
China also plans to test new rocket systems to haul hefty payloads into Earth orbit with kerosene fuel, a less toxic alternative to hydrazine used on today's Chinese Long March boosters. China is constructing a new spaceport on Hainan Island off the southern coast of the country's mainland.
The fresh five-year plan will kick off in 2012 with the launch of two Shenzhou spaceships to dock with Tiangong 1, a prototype space station module launched in September 2011. An unmanned Shenzhou capsule accomplished China's first robotic docking in orbit in November.
In the next five years, "China will launch space laboratories, manned spaceships and space freighters," the plan says. The country will also "make breakthroughs in and master space station key technologies, including astronauts' medium-term stay, regenerative life support and propellant refueling."
Engineers are developing the Chang'e 3 robotic lunar lander for launch in 2013, the second phase of a three-step moon exploration effort. China successfully sent two Chang'e orbiters to the moon in 2007 and 2010, collecting sharp imagery for a high-resolution map of the lunar surface.
Controllers dispatched Chang'e 2 from lunar orbit to a position at the L2 libration point a million miles from Earth, the furthest distance any Chinese probe has ever traveled from Earth.
Another focus for Chinese space officials will be the continued deployment of the Beidou navigation system, a satellite network designed to provide positioning services independent of the U.S. Air Force's GPS program.
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