Progress in China's Lunar Exploration Program

Abstract

Chang'E-1 and Chang'E-2 of China's Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP) have successfully achieved their mission. At the present time, only Chang'E-3 is still in operation, which was successfully launched on December 2, 2013. Chang'E-3 probe is the third robotic lunar mission of CLEP, which consists of a lander and a rover, with eight payloads on board the spacecraft. Up to December 21, 2015, more than 2.86TB raw data were received from these instruments onboard Chang'E-3 probe. A series of research results have been achieved. This paper gives a detailed introduction to the new scientific results obtained from Chang'E-3 missions.