China launches unmanned lunar spacecraft capable of returning to earth

China today launched an unmanned spacecraft to fly around the moon and return to earth in order to test technologies that would be used in Chang'e-5, a lunar exploration mission currently under development, which is expected to land on the moon by 2017 in the country's first moon mission, with a provision to return back.

The launch of the lunar orbiter mounted atop an advanced Long March-3C rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province happened in the early hours today.

According to the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence, the test spacecraft separated from its carrier rocket and entered the expected orbit shortly after the liftoff.

The whole mission would take about eight days and developed by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the spacecraft would fly around the moon for half a circle and return to earth.

The test spacecraft, on its return would approach the terrestrial atmosphere at a velocity close to 11.2 kilometers per second and rebound to slow down before re-entry into the atmosphere.

Meanwhile, according to state-run Xinhua news agency, it would land in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The mission would involve obtaining experimental data, validating re-entry technologies such as guidance, navigation and control, heat shield and trajectory design for a future touch-down on the moon by Chang'e-5, which was expected to be sent to the moon, collect samples and return to earth in 2017.

Meanwhile, according to Associated Press, the eight-day programme that got underway Friday, was a test run for a 2017 mission that aimed to have a Chinese spaceship land on the moon, retrieve samples and return to Earth.

The eight-day programme would make the burgeoning space power China only the third country after the US and Russia to have carried out such a mission.

China already had launched a pair orbiting lunar probes. China also landed a craft on the moon with a rover onboard, but none of those missions was programmed to return to earth.

China had also hinted at a possible manned mission to the moon at a later date.