14 DAY TRIAL // Officials with the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announce that the Chang'e-3 lunar lander was recently able to snap its first panorama on the surface of the Moon. The spacecraft arrived at Mare Imbrium, its current location, on December 14.
Chang'e-3 began snapping the images that make up this panorama around 7 hours after landing, on December 15. This was shortly after its six-wheeled rover, called Yutu, was successfully deployed on the lunar surface. The small robot is visible in this image, as are the first tracks it made on the Moon.
“This picture is made of 60 pictures taken 3 times by the rover. The rover used three angles: vertical, 15 degrees tilted up, and 15 degrees down […] so that we get an even farther view,” said for CCTV Liu Enhai, who was the designed in chief for the Chang’e-3 probe system. The spacecraft was manufactured by experts at the Shanghai Aerospace System Engineering Institute, in China.
With the December 14 landing, China became only the third nation in the world to successfully carry out a soft landing on the surface of the Moon, following the United States and the Soviet Union. The last spacecraft to land on the Moon was the Russian Luna 24 vehicle, back in 1976, Universe Today reports.