BEIJING, Dec. 14 (Xinhuanet) -- China’s first lunar rover is expected to land on the moon on Saturday, 12 days after it blasted off from the earth.
Chang’e-3, the unmanned spacecraft carrying the rover, is due to touch down on a lava plain named Bay of Rainbows on Saturday night Beijing Time. All systems have been prepared for its landing.
Chang’e-3 will release Yutu, the lunar rover which can dig up soil samples to a depth of 30 meters. The rover will patrol the moon’s surface, studying the structure of the lunar crust as well as the soil and rocks. It will make China one of only three nations, after the US and the former Soviet Union, to soft land on the moon. It will be the first to do so in more than three decades.
(Source: CNTV.cn)
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