China launched its first space mission to the moon and back early Friday, authorities said, the latest step forward for Beijing's ambitious program to one day land a Chinese citizen on the Earth's only natural satellite. The unnamed, unmanned probe will travel to the moon, fly around it and head back to Earth, re-entering the atmosphere and landing, the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND) said in a statement. The module will be 413,000 kilometres from Earth at its furthest point on the eight-day mission.
The official Xinhua news agency said it would re-enter the atmosphere at 11.2 kilometres per second (25,000 mph) before slowing down -- a process that generates extremely high temperatures -- and landing in northern China's Inner Mongolia region.
The mission is intended to test technology to be used in the Chang'e-5, China's fourth lunar probe, which aims to gather samples from the moon's surface and will be launched around 2017, SASTIND said previously. Beijing sees its multi-billion-dollar space program as a marker of its rising global stature and mounting technical expertise, as well as evidence of the ruling Communist Party's success in turning around the fortunes of the once poverty-stricken nation.
The military-run project has plans for a permanent orbiting station by 2020 and eventually to send a human to the moon.
China currently has a rover, the Jade Rabbit, on the surface of the moon.
The craft, launched as part of the Chang'e-3 lunar mission late last year, has been declared a success by Chinese authorities, although it has been beset by mechanical troubles.
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