Quotable

"A smooth and steady soft landing on the lunar surface will be a challenge."

OUYANG ZIYUAN, chief scientist of China's lunar orbiter project, at the conference of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World on Wednesday.Different from the hard landing adopted for the first lunar probe, Chang'e-1, Chang'e-3 cannot land with a parachute, said Ouyang.Chang'e-3, to be launched in the second half of 2013, will conduct a moon landing and lunar explorations.