2013–2020: New Spacefaring Nations and Sample Return
Chang’e 3 / Yutu
First soft lunar landing since 1976 and first Chinese lunar surface mission.
Era 5 of 6 · full record in the catalog
- Launch
- 1 Dec 2013
- Lead / partner
- China
- Target
- Moon
- Category
- Lander / rover
- Status
- Success
- Vehicle
- unknown
- Mass
- unknown
- Orbit / trajectory
- unknown
Why it happened
Chang’e 3 / Yutu flew during 2013–2020: New Spacefaring Nations and Sample Return, as part of China's work toward moon. A sourced write-up of the context around this mission is still on the editorial queue; nothing here is invented to fill the gap.
The mission
The full narrative of this mission is pending research and writing. What is recorded so far: First soft lunar landing since 1976 and first Chinese lunar surface mission.
Results
First soft lunar landing since 1976 and first Chinese lunar surface mission.
Related missions
Sources & image credits
- Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Science, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0 · license: cc-by-4.0 (source, checked 2026-08-24)
- Mission record: AntarikshPedia canonical dataset (data-sources/missions_timeline.md)
- Specifications reference: NASA NSSDCA Master Catalog
