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The Chang'e-5
lunar probe is undergoing a final round of tests and is expected
to be on standby for launch from August, the official People's
Daily said, citing the China National Space Administration.
The launch will involve new challenges for China in sample
collection, taking off from the moon and high-speed reentry to
the Earth's atmosphere, making it "one of China's most
complicated and difficult space missions", Hu Hao, an official
from China's Lunar Exploration Programme, told the paper.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for China to become a
global power in space exploration.
"Not long ago, the United States' Trump Administration revealed
an ambition to return to the moon. Our country also announced a
series of deep space exploration plans," said the official
Science and Technology Daily.
"The moon is the first stop for humanity's march toward deep
space," the paper said.
In February, the Trump administration asked the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration to look into the
possibility of manning a heavy-lift rocket mission, expected to
be launched in 2018, perhaps setting the stage for a human
return to the moon.
China's new probe is the latest step in its lunar exploration
program. In 2013, it completed its first lunar "soft landing"
since 1976 with the Chang'e-3 craft and its Jade Rabbit rover.
China is aiming to send a probe to the dark side of the moon by
2018, the first ever such trip, and hopes to put astronauts on
the moon by 2036.
(Reporting by Christian Shepherd; Editing by Paul Tait)
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