China’s space program:

Gearing for Moon and Mars

China is planning giant strides into deep space exploration by sending its first lunar manned mission by 2025, a probe to Mars by 2013 and to Venus by 2015, intensifying its space race with India which also plans Moon and Sun missions.

“China’s first step toward expected to orbit the Moon, land and return to Earth by 2020,” Commander in Chief of the Chang’e (lunar landing) program and an academic at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Ye Peijian said.

Ye told a meeting Space scientists that China plans to launch its first manned moon landing in 2025, a probe to Mars by 2013 and to Venus by 2015.

“China has the full capacity to accomplish Mars exploration by 2013,” Ye was quoted as saying by the state-run Global Times newspaper.

The unmanned mission to the Moon was seen as a counter to India’s Chandrayan-1, which left its foot prints on the Moon by crashing on to the lunar surface with the tricolour, stealing a march over China by becoming the fourth country to do so after the US, Russia and Japan.

China, earlier, had a head start by flying a man into space in 2003 thus becoming the third nation only after United States and the Soviet Union and Chang’e 1 was launched in 2007 which entered lunar orbit and sent pictures of the moon.

India plans to launch its Chandrayan-II mission in 2012-13 with its Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), which would include a lunar orbiter to probe the moon surface for geological date and look for helium-3.

ISRO also plans to send manned space flight by 2015 and a human moon mission by 2025 besides plans to send a satellite (Aditya) to study Sun corona with more advanced GSLV launchers.

The Hindu