China succeeded in the world’s first mission to the Moon and back in some 40 years, becoming the third nation to do so after Russia and the United States. The test lunar orbiter(环月飞行器), also named "Xiaofei", landed in the area of Siziwang, about 500 kilometers away from Beijing early Saturday morning.
Sent out into the space Friday last week, the orbiter travelled 840,000 kilometers on its eight-day mission(任务). It flew round the far side of the Moon and took some pictures of Earth and Moon together. The returning began at around 6:13 a.m. Saturday morning, with the orbiter coming near to Earth at a speed of about 11.2 kilometers one second.
To help it slow down, the engineers designed something special to "bounce(反弹)" out of the side of the atmosphere, before going back into it. This is just like that a stone skipping across water, and can shorten the "braking distance" for the orbiter, said Zhou Jianliang, an engineer."Really, this is like braking(制动,刹车)a car," said Zhou, "The faster you drive, the longer the distance you need to bring the car to have a stop."
The "bounce" was one of the biggest challenges of the mission. Wu Yanhua, the director of China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, said the successful test mission has collected a lot of useful information and experience for future missions.
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