The Chinese lunar probe Shanghai-1 will be launched in the second half of 2007

The spacecraft will circle the moon for a year and will collect a lot of scientific data that will be used by China to plan unmanned missions and finally a manned mission to the moon in the next decade 

 Chang'e 1 lunar rover is ready for mission. Its assembly at the facilities of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) has been completed, and tests are now being carried out on the rocket engines that will lift it into space. This is how Luan Enjie, commander of the Chinese lunar exploration program, was quoted in reports in the Chinese media. "If everything If all goes well, the Shenzhe-1 moon probe is expected to be launched in 1," he said.

ShenZhen 1 is scheduled to be launched on a Long March A3 rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the southern province of Sichuan, although no official date has yet been given. The spacecraft is named after a Chinese goddess, who according to legend lives on the moon. Earlier reports in China's official media indicated a planned date of April, but Xinhua news agency quoted Huan Chunping, chief adviser to China's manned space program, as estimating that the mission would be pushed back to the second half of 2007.

Huan further said that following the success of Shenzhe-1, it will take about 15 years to launch a manned spacecraft to the moon (2022), although such an effort will depend on the continuous development of the Long March 5 heavy launcher.

ShenZhen-1 is based on the Dongfanghong 3 communications satellite platform and will carry scientific equipment weighing 127 kg for a planned one-year mission. "In technical terms, Shenzhe-1 is actually a new spacecraft," wrote Lowen on one of the agency's websites. According to the site, Shenzhe-1 will carry a total of eight main instruments with which it will photograph and map the surface of the moon, explore the deep regions, analyze the chemical composition of the regolith as well as the space environment surrounding the moon. The budget of the operation is 1.4 billion yuan (about 180 million dollars).

CNSA officials previously said that Shenzhe-1 is planned to orbit the moon in a polar orbit at an altitude of 100-200 km. "Given the anomaly of the moon's gravitational field, ShenZha-1 may fall on the lunar surface within six months, if a 100 km high trajectory is chosen," Luan said, adding that if the mission managers decide not to explore the moon's gravitational field, The higher route will be selected. In order to reach the moon in the first stage, Shenzhe will be required to take off in an elliptical orbit whose closest point to the earth will be at an altitude of 600 km. After that, the mission managers will perform three maneuvers that will raise the spacecraft to a higher orbit and finally - to a transit orbit to the moon. "The transition to lunar orbit is the critical part of the Shenzhe mission," Luan said. "If this step is not performed correctly, the spacecraft will pass by the moon or hit it, two events with negative consequences.