China Moon Landing: It's been forty years since any country has achieved a soft landing on the moon, but China's Chang'e 3 lunar probe changed all that this morning when it touched down on the moon's surface in Sinus Iridum, or the Bay of Rainbows.

State media said that on Saturday, after a 12 minute landing process, China's first lunar space probe touched down. This is part of a larger program. China wants to put a man on the moon. During the 12-minute landing period, Chang'e 3 lander needed to have no contact with Earth.

Chang'e 3 dropped off a Yutu, which is a six-wheeled lunar rover. The rover will explore the moon's surface for three months.  The Chang'e mission blasted off from southwest China on Dec. 2. It was carried on a Long March-3B rocket. The Chang'e 3 lander was named after a mythical Chinese goddess of the moon. Yutu means "Jade Rabbit," which is the goddess' pet in the myth.

The Chang'e 3 lunar lander and Yutu moon rover are part of a long-term space effort aimed at putting Chinese astronauts on the moon. China sent its first astronaut into space in 2003. China plans to open a space station around 2020 and send an astronaut to the moon after that.

China is the third country to successfully carry out a lunar soft landing and the first since the Soviet Union succeeded in 1976. Neither the craft or the equipment was damaged. The United States and the former Soviet Union are the only other countries to land on the moon.

Peter Bond, consultant editor for Jane's Space Systems and Industry said "It's still a significant technological challenge to land on another world. Especially somewhere like the moon, which doesn't have an atmosphere so you can't use parachutes or anything like that. You have to use rocket motors for the descent, and you have to make sure you go down at the right angle and the right rate of descent and you don't end up in a crater on top of a large rock. They are taking their time with getting to know about how to fly humans into space, how to build space stations ... how to explore the solar system, especially the moon and Mars," Bond said. "They are making good strides, and I think over the next 10, 20 years they'll certainly be rivaling Russia and America in this area and maybe overtaking them in some areas."