China to launch moon probe by 2013
The space race between the two Asian giants ( or should I say world?) China and India has reached new heights with the space agencies of the two countries coming forth with announcement after announcements regarding their future space missions.
After the great success of the Chandrayaan-1 which saw India sending a satellite and a MIP to the moon, India has made announcements about Chandrayaan-2 — a mission that will see India land a rover on the lunar surface by 2012 — and Aditya — a mission to research the sun’s corona from space.
Perhaps feeling the heat from its neighbour, China has made announcements that it would be launching over 15 satellites in 2009 and is also said to be planning a Chandrayaan-2 like mission — Chang’e-3 — to be launched by 2013.
China has the advantage when it comes to manned missions, but with the Indian government approving the proposals from the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) regarding the same, India might be expected to catch up with China and the other Space faring countries in this aspect as well. Given the expertise of the Indian space scientists, India can be expected to launching manned mission within the next five years and make up for the disadvantage that it currently faces.
China meanwhile is planning to construct a space station by 2020 and is also looking towards docking manned and unmanned spacecrafts with the European Space station in the near future.
The space race is really frenzied and it will be interesting to see how it proceeds in the next decade!
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