China will use its heavy-lift Long March 5 rocket to launch space stations, lunar rovers and large satellites beginning in 2014, according to a story on the China View website.
The rocket will be built in the Binhai New Area of Tianjin, a port city 120 km (75 miles) southeast of Beijing. It will then be transported by sea to a new launch complex that China is building on the island of Hainan. China expects to be able to construct a dozen Long March 5 rockets per year.
In a separate story, Chinese officials said they expect to launch a recoverable lunar rover in 2017 that would return soil samples to Earth. They view the rover as an essential stepping stone to human missions to the lunar surface.
Credit: NASA
NASA PRESS RELEASE
In a car commercial, it would sound odd: active suspension, six-wheel drive with independent steering for each wheel, no doors, no windows, no seats and the only color it comes in is gold.
But NASA’s latest concept vehicle is meant to go way, way off-road — as in 240,000 miles from the nearest pavement, driving on the moon. NASA is working to send astronauts to the moon by 2020 to set up a lunar outpost, where they will do scientific research and prepare for journeys to destinations like Mars.
NASA is testing many technologies needed for research on the moon. Two examples are a lunar truck for astronauts and a rover equipped with a drill designed to dig into the moon’s soil.
Continue reading ‘NASA Tests Lunar Rover Concepts’
