China Sets Launch Window for Mission to Moon

The Long March 3A rocket and a lunar orbiter, the Chang'e One, which are under wraps, sits on the launch pad at the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre, in southwest China's Sichuan province, October 20, 2007. China's preparations to launch its first lunar orbiter are on schedule for lift-off later this week, a Chinese official said on Monday. REUTERS/China Daily
The Long March 3A rocket and a lunar orbiter, the Chang'e One, which are under wraps, sits on the launch pad at the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre, in southwest China's Sichuan province, October 20, 2007. China's preparations to launch its first lunar orbiter are on schedule for lift-off later this week, a Chinese official said on Monday. REUTERS/China Daily
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China Sets Launch Window for Mission to Moon

The Long March 3A rocket and a lunar orbiter, the Chang'e One, which are under wraps, sits on the launch pad at the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre, in southwest China's Sichuan province, October 20, 2007. China's preparations to launch its first lunar orbiter are on schedule for lift-off later this week, a Chinese official said on Monday. REUTERS/China Daily
The Long March 3A rocket and a lunar orbiter, the Chang'e One, which are under wraps, sits on the launch pad at the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre, in southwest China's Sichuan province, October 20, 2007. China's preparations to launch its first lunar orbiter are on schedule for lift-off later this week, a Chinese official said on Monday. REUTERS/China Daily

China plans to launch an unmanned spacecraft to the moon between 4 am and 5 am Beijing time on Tuesday (2000-2100 GMT on Monday), the official Xinhua news agency said, citing information from the country’s National Space Administration.

Chang’e 5 is the country's most ambitious lunar mission yet. If successful, it would be a major advance for China's space program, and some experts said it could pave the way for bringing samples back from Mars or even a crewed lunar mission.

The four modules of the Chang’e 5 spacecraft are expected be sent into space Tuesday aboard a massive Long March-5 rocket from the Wenchang launch center along the coast of the southern island province of Hainan, according to a NASA description of the mission.

The secretive Chinese National Space Administration has only said that a launch is scheduled for late November, although the Lunar Exploration Project said in a statement Monday that success in orbiting, descending and returning would “lay a solid foundation for future missions.”

The mission's key task is to drill 2 meters (almost 7 feet) beneath the moon's surface and scoop up about 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of rocks and other debris to be brought back to Earth, according to NASA. That would offer the first opportunity to scientists to study newly obtained lunar material since the American and Russian missions of the 1960s and 1970s.

After making the three-day trip from Earth, the Chang’e 5 lander’s time on the moon is scheduled to be short and sweet. It can only stay one lunar daytime, or about 14 Earth days, because it lacks the radioisotope heating units to withstand the moon’s freezing nights, The Associated Press reported.

The lander will dig for materials with its drill and robotic arm and transfer them to what's called an ascender, which will lift off from the moon and dock with the “service capsule.” The materials will then be moved to the return capsule for the trip home to Earth.

The technical complexity of Chang’e 5, with its four components, makes it “remarkable in many ways,” said Joan Johnson-Freese, a space expert at the US Naval War College.

“China is showing itself capable of developing and successfully carrying out sustained high-tech programs, important for regional influence and potentially global partnerships,” she said.

Chang’e 4 — which was the first soft landing on the moon’s relatively unexplored far side almost two years ago — is currently collecting full measurements of radiation exposure from the lunar surface, information vital for any country that plans to send astronauts to the moon.

China in July became one of three countries to have launched a mission to Mars, in China's case an orbiter and a rover that will search for signs of water on the red planet. The CNSA says the spacecraft Tianwen 1 is on course to arrive at Mars around February.



Brazil Fires Drive Acceleration in Amazon Deforestation

Illegal burning of the Amazon rainforest near Humaita, in the northern Brazilian state of Amazonas, in September 2024. MICHAEL DANTAS / AFP/File
Illegal burning of the Amazon rainforest near Humaita, in the northern Brazilian state of Amazonas, in September 2024. MICHAEL DANTAS / AFP/File
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Brazil Fires Drive Acceleration in Amazon Deforestation

Illegal burning of the Amazon rainforest near Humaita, in the northern Brazilian state of Amazonas, in September 2024. MICHAEL DANTAS / AFP/File
Illegal burning of the Amazon rainforest near Humaita, in the northern Brazilian state of Amazonas, in September 2024. MICHAEL DANTAS / AFP/File

A record fire season in Brazil last year caused the rate of deforestation to accelerate, in a blow to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's pledge to protect the Amazon rainforest, official figures showed Friday.

The figures released by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), which tracks forest cover by satellite, indicated that deforestation rate between August 2024 and May 2025 rose by 9.1 percent compared to the same period in 2023-2024, said AFP.

And they showed a staggering 92-percent increase in Amazon deforestation in May, compared to the year-ago period.

That development risks erasing the gains made by Brazil in 2024, when deforestation slowed in all of its ecological biomes for the first time in six years.

The report showed that beyond the Amazon, the picture was less alarming in other biomes across Brazil, host of this year's UN climate change conference.

In the Pantanal wetlands, for instance, deforestation between August 2024 and May 2025 fell by 77 percent compared to the same period in 2023-2024.

Presenting the findings, the environment ministry's executive secretary Joao Paulo Capobianco chiefly blamed the record number of fires that swept Brazil and other South American countries last year, whipped up by a severe drought.

Many of the fires were started to clear land for crops or cattle and then raged out of control.