China's Chang'e 1 lunar mapping spacecraft entered the moon's orbit early Monday following its launch from Earth on October 24.The orbiter marks the first step of China's three-stage moon mission, which will lead to a moon landing and launch of a moon rover at around 2012. In the third phase, another rover will land on the moon and return to earth with lunar soil and stone samples for scientific research at around 2017. [video]
Japan's Kagula [SELENE] exploration spacecraft is now in lunar orbit and will soon commerce collection of data on element abundance, mineral assemblage, surface topography, sub-surface structure, magnetic and the unstable lunar gravity field.
A fleet of spacecraft from Japan, China, India, and United States are expected to be in lunar orbit before the end of 2008. The Russians are planning a lunar spacecraft called Luna-Glob in cooperation with India in 2012. The Germans are considering a luna probe in 2013 as well.
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