The first robot rover to land on the Moon in nearly 40 years, China's Jade Rabbit, has begun sending back photos, with shots of its lunar lander(登月飞行器). Jade Rabbit rolled down a ramp lowered by the lander and on to the volcanic plain known as Sinus Iridum at 04：35 Beijing time on Saturday (20：35 GMT)．It moved to a spot a few metres away, its historic short journey recorded by the lander. On Sunday evening the two machines began photographing each other. A Chinese flag is clearly visible on the Jade Rabbit as it stands deployed on the Moon's surface.  Ma Xingrui, chief mander of China's lunar programme, declared the mission (任务)a “plete success”. The first soft landing on the Moon since 1976 is the latest step in China's ambitious space programme, says BBC science reporter Paul Rincon. The lander will operate there for a year, while the rover is expected to work for some three months. The Chang'e3 mission landed some 12 days after being launched atop a Chinesedeveloped Long March 3B rocket from Xichang in the country's south. The official Xinhua news service reported that the lander began its descent(下降)on Saturday just after 13：00 GMT, touching down in Sinus Iridum (the Bay of Rainbows) 11 minutes later. “I was lucky enough to see a prototype rover(原型月球车) in Shanghai a few years ago it's a wonderful technological achievement to have landed，” Prof Andrew Coates, from UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory, told BBC News. Chang'e3 is the third unmanned rover mission to touch down on the lunar surface, and the first to go there in more than 40 years. The last was an 840kg (1,900lb) Soviet vehicle known as Lunokhod2, which was kept warm by polonium(钋)210. But the sixwheeled Chinese vehicle carries a more sophisticated payload(复杂的有效负荷), including groundpenetrating radar which will gather measurements of the lunar soil and crust. 小题1:What does the text mainly talk about?
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