Tag Archives: rover

China has announced the successful soft landing of its Chang’e 3 spacecraft – the first such landing for mankind since 1976. “Chang’e-3 has successfully carried out a soft-landing on the moon. This makes the China world’s third nation to achieve a lunar soft landing,” said the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in an online post. State news agency Xinhua published a poignant editorial on the “historic breakthrough.” “Space exploration is the cause of mankind, not just ‘the patent’ of a certain country,” the editorial said. “China will share the achievements of its lunar exploration with the whole world and use them to benefit humanity.” The Chang’e 3 craft, which is named after a Chinese moon goddess, safely landed on a 250-mile-wide plain known as The Bay of Rainbows. Using sensors and 3D imaging, the craft first located a flat surface. Rockets fired 330 feet above the lunar surface and slowly guided the ship …