On December 2, 2013 (October 30, 2013 in the lunar calendar), China successfully launched the Chang'e-3 lunar probe. Chang'e-3 is the second phase of the Chang'e project of the National Space Administration of the People's Republic of China, including a lander and a lunar rover. It was launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center by a Long March-3B carrier rocket at 1:30 on December 2, 2013. It arrived in lunar orbit on December 6 and carried out the second phase of the Chang'e Phase III project. On December 14, it successfully soft-landed on the moon's Hongwan area with China's first lunar rover, the "Yutu". It became the first probe to soft-land on the lunar surface after Luna 24 in 1976. At present, only the United States and the former Soviet Union have successfully carried out 13 unmanned lunar surface soft landings; only the United States has achieved manned lunar landings, and the former Soviet Union has carried out two unmanned lunar surface inspection and exploration missions. In 2008, the Chang'e-3 lunar soft landing probe project was officially approved. After nearly five years of development, it was shipped to the factory at the end of August 2013. In mid-September, an 124 large transport aircraft was leased to Xichang, and the final inspection work before launch began at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. At the same time that Chang'e-3 was approved, Japan and India also launched lunar soft landing exploration programs. Both Huiye Ji-2 and Chandrayaan-2 were scheduled to launch around 2013, but Huiye Ji-2 has delayed the launch until 2018 due to budget shortfalls. Chandrayaan-2 had to be developed by India instead due to Russia's inability to provide a lander in time, and it will be delayed until at least 2017. During the same period, Google provided funding to start the Google Lunar XPRIZE lunar exploration activities, but none of the 25 teams still participating will be able to launch in 2013, and even some may not be able to land on the moon before the 2015 deadline. In addition to the official projects of the three Asian countries and the commercial competition team of Google, Russia and the European Space Agency also plan to launch lunar landing probes in the future. In particular, Russia will once again conduct the three-stage lunar exploration of "orbiting and falling back". A new round of lunar exploration is in full swing. The overall goal of the second phase of our country's lunar exploration project is to achieve a soft landing on the lunar surface and release the lunar rover for automatic inspection and reconnaissance. As the core of the second phase of the lunar exploration project, Chang'e-3 consists of a lander and a lunar rover, with a total mass of about 3.7 tons. It will be launched by the Long March 3B enhanced rocket directly into the direct transfer orbit of the earth and the moon. It will carry out a near-moon capture maneuver at 100 kilometers above the moon and enter a circular orbit around the moon at an altitude of 100 kilometers. Then it will change its orbit into an elliptical orbit at an altitude of 15 kilometers by 100 kilometers, and decelerate at a near-moon point of 15 kilometers for a soft landing operation. After the soft landing of Chang'e-3, the lander and the rover will jointly conduct a series of exploration missions to gain a deeper understanding of the topography and geological structure information such as lunar soil and rocks, so as to accumulate data and experience for the lunar sample return probe in the follow-up third phase of the project. The design of Chang'e-3 is much more complicated than that of Chang'e-1 and Chang'e-2 lunar orbiters based on the DFH-3 communications satellite platform, and it can be called one of the most complex and technically difficult spacecraft designed and manufactured in our country so far. Breaking through the soft landing technology on the moon is one of the core tasks of Chang'e-3. In order to achieve a successful moon landing, the Chang'e-3 probe draws on the experience and lessons of the United States and the Soviet Union in lunar soft landing exploration in the past few decades. According to our country's technical and engineering capabilities, it has been carefully designed. It can be said that it has taken great pains in soft landing engines and guidance, navigation and control technologies.