China became the first country to “soft-land” on the Moon in nearly four decades on Saturday, taking the Asian super-power one step closer to putting a man on the lunar surface.
The unmanned Chang'e-3 spacecraft successfully landed at just before 9.15pm Beijing time, according to Chinese state media.
Yang Yuguang, an expert from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, said: “Soft-landing technology is a critical technology necessary for the future manned lunar missions and in the far future we should establish [lunar] bases and utilise resources on the Moon,” he said.
China, India and the US have fired or crash-landed probes on the Moon’s surface in recent years but this was the first soft - or controlled - landing since 1976, when the former Soviet Union’s Luna-24 landed there.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/10517762/Chinese-probe-lands-on-the-Moon-as-space-programme-gathers-pace.html
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