BEIJING – An exhibition focusing on China’s Lunar Exploration Program(CLEP) kicked off Saturday in the northern Swiss city of Basel,highlighting some of the magnificent achievements of China’s aerospaceindustry.
As part of the ongoing Baselworld 2018 Show, the exhibition was presentedjointly by China’s Chang’E Aerospace Technology (Beijing) LLC and TAGHeuer, the avant-garde Swiss watchmaker, strategic partner and officialtimekeeper of CLEP.
“We feel honored to take this opportunity to demonstrate the achievementsof CLEP, which is of great significance to the development of China’saerospace industry,” Xu Xingli, general manager of Chang’E AerospaceTechnology (Beijing) LLC, said at the opening ceremony of the exhibition.
Since the year 2004, when the CLEP officially started, Xu said, China hasmade significant progress in the exploration of the moon.
“In 2007, China’s first lunar probe Chang’e-1 was successfully launched.Chang’e-1 is the first lunar probe to transmit back the most complete 3-Dmap of the lunar surface, marking the milestone of China becoming one ofthe countries with outer space exploration capability,” he said.
“Since the second phase of the CLEP being approved and initiated in 2008,Chang’e-2 and Chang’e-3 lunar probes were successfully launched and theyfully completed their missions,” he added.
According to Xu, China’s important progress in the past decade alsoincludes sending CE-2 lunar probe directly into the Earth-moon transferorbit in 2010, the soft landing and patrol survey on an extraterrestrialcelestial body by CE-3 in 2013, and the successful landing of the returnand re-entry test spacecraft in the scheduled area in 2014.
“CLEP represents the painstaking efforts of everyone involved for over adecade. In the next step, China plans to implement the Chang’e-4 lunarmission this year, and this will be the first-ever soft landing and rovingsurvey on the far side of the moon,” Zuo Wei, deputy chief designer of CLEPGround Application System, said on the same occasion.
According to the scientist, the biggest challenge for CE-4 mission is thathumans on the Earth cannot communicate directly with the farside of themoon.
To solve this problem, she said, China plans to launch a relay satellite inMay 2018 to enable communication between the Earth and the farside of themoon.
The Chinese scientist also revealed that the CE-5 will be launched in 2019and it will be the first in the world to use unmanned lunar orbitalrendezvous and docking mode to achieve lunar surface sampling return.
In a tribute to China’s lunar exploration achievements and illustrate thedreams of humankind for the moon, TAG Heue unveiled Saturday two specialCLEP edition watches. Xinhua