Monday, November 10, 2003
CHINA MOON
Space Daily has an article with details about China's unmanned lunar science plans. (Most of this is a fairly poor direct translation of an original Chinese document, so be ready for "Chinglish".) The key points are that China is now publicly getting behind the previous specualtion that a lunar orbiter is only three years in the future, and that soft landers, rovers and sample return missions are being planned to follow that. All of this seems very plausible. I would expect a Chinese probe to be in lunar orbit by the time of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and a soft lander by 2010 at the latest. There could be Chinese footprints on the moon by 2015.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 1:40 PM
