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Future military, civil and commercial cislunar operations will require precise lunar maps not just of topography, but also of the Moon's gravitational and magnetic fields.
CHANG'E-2 LAUNCH: Oct. 1, 2010 LANDING SITE: None MISSION: The uncrewed Chang'e 2 orbited the moon and tested a 100-kilometre-high lunar orbit to prepare for a soft landing of Chang'e-3. It later extended its mission with a fly-by of a near-earth asteroid "4179 Toutatis". DURATION: The mission lasted eight months, ending on June 9, 2011.
China on Friday launched a mission to collect samples from the moon's "hidden" side, a first in space exploration history. See what other explorations China has made for its lunar mission and what else it has planned.
As the Moon rises early in the morning, Mars and Neptune meet in a conjunction and we gear up for the Eta Aquariids in the sky this week.
Buoyed by successes at the Moon and Mars, China is embarking on a science and exploration program of staggering scale.