While other countries across the world are grappling with the pandemic that originated in China, the country on Tuesday launched a new rocket carrying a new experimental spacecraft. This comes as a step forward in realizing the country’s moon landing ambitions and send astronauts to the moon.
The rocket names ‘Long March 5B’ took off from the Wenchang launch site located in the southern island of Hainan province. Eight minutes after launch, the unmanned prototype of a spacecraft akin to NASA’s deep space capsule Orion, separated from the rocket and entered the intended orbit. A prototype of a cargo return capsule was also separated from the rocket as planned, the state news agency Xinhua said in a statement.
The spaceship and the capsule are slated to return to earth on Friday after completion of the test flights.
China hopes to transport astronauts to a space station through a spacecraft that it plans to complete by 2022. The assembly of the Tiangong space station is expected to begin this year and finish by 2022. It is also aspiring to send people to the Moon eventually which only the US has done so far. China plans to send astronauts to the Moon in a decade and build a base there.