Chang’e-4 is second spacecraft in Chinese mission to land on far side of the moon

China’s lunar lander Chang’e-4 has successfully entered orbit around the moon.

After a voyage of 240,000 miles (385,000km) that lasted 110 hours, the spacecraft fired its retrorockets on 12 December while just 80 miles above the lunar surface. This placed it in a stable elliptical orbit, where it will stay until the landing attempt, which is expected next month.

Chang’e-4 was launched on 7 December atop a Long March-3B rocket from Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in China’s Sichuan province.

Spacewatch: China readies for part one of mission to far side of the moon Read more

It is the second spacecraft in the China National Space Administration’s (CNSA) mission to attempt the first landing on the far side of the moon.

The first spacecraft, a communications relay satellite called Queqiao, launched on 20 May and is now stationed in its operational orbit about 40,000 miles beyond the moon.

A relay satellite is needed because once the lander is on the far side of the moon, it will not be in sight of Earth.

A date for the landing attempt has not yet been announced but it is likely to take place in early January after mission controllers have tested all systems.

The spacecraft carries experiments and instruments from a number of countries including Germany, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia and Sweden. </s> China used a Long March 3B rocket to launch the lunar mission into space at the southwestern Xichang satellite launch centre early Saturday, according to Xinhua News Agency.

The craft, Chang'e 4, is named after the Chinese goddess of the moon; it features a lunar station and a lunar rover.

The launch was made possible due to state moon research funding provided by the China National Space Administration, which will enable the Asian state to rapidly expand its space capacities.

READ MORE: China May Be World's First Country to Deliver Space Probe to Far Side of Moon

Two years prior to the recent launch, China's Chang'e 3 craft landed successfully on the moon. The new rover resembles its predecessor but, according to developers, is the lightest robotic vehicle in its class. The model was further developed because the terrain of the far side of the Moon is much more complex. </s> Beijing: China launched a rover early on Saturday destined to land on the far side of the moon, a global first that would boost Beijing’s ambitions to become a space superpower, state media said.

 The Chang’e-4 lunar probe mission — named after the moon goddess in Chinese mythology — launched on a Long March 3B rocket from the southwestern Xichang launch centre at 2:23 am, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

 The blast-off marked the start of a long journey to the far side of the moon for the Chang’e-4 mission, expected to land around the New Year to carry out experiments and survey the untrodden terrain.

 “Chang’e-4 is humanity’s first probe to land on and explore the far side of the moon,” said the mission’s chief commander He Rongwei of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, the main state-owned space contractor. 

 “This mission is also the most meaningful deep space exploration research project in the world in 2018,” He said, according to state-run Global Times. Unlike the near side of the moon that is “tidally locked” and always faces the earth, and offers many flat areas to touch down on, the far side is mountainous and rugged.

 It was not until 1959 that the Soviet Union captured the first images of the heavily cratered surface, uncloaking some of the mystery of the moon’s “dark side.”

 No lander or rover has ever touched the surface there, positioning China as the first nation to explore the area. “China over the past 10 or 20 years has been systematically ticking off the various firsts that America and the Soviet Union did in the 1960s and 1970s in space exploration,” said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

 “This is one of the first times they’ve done something that no one else has done before.” It is no easy technological feat — China has been preparing for this moment for years.

 A major challenge for such a mission is communicating with the robotic lander: as the far side of the moon always points away from earth, there is no direct “line of sight” for signals.

 As a solution, China in May blasted the Queqiao (“Magpie Bridge”) satellite into the moon’s orbit, positioning it so that it can relay data and commands between the lander and earth.

 Adding to the difficulties, Chang’e-4 is being sent to the Aitken Basin in the lunar south pole region — known for its craggy and complex terrain — state media has said.

 The probe is carrying six experiments from China and four from abroad. They include low-frequency radio astronomical studies — aiming to take advantage of the lack of interference on the far side — as well as mineral and radiation tests, Xinhua cited the China National Space Administration as saying.

 The experiments also involve planting potato and other seeds, according to Chinese media reports. — AFP </s> Humans have landed a spacecraft on the far side of the moon for the first time in history.

China's Chang'e 4 spacecraft achieved the milestone on Jan. 3, with the country's space agency landing its lunar probe in Von Kármán crater on the moon's mysterious far side. Official word was provided at 8 p.m. PT by Chinese State Media service CCTV.

Launched on Dec. 7, the Chang'e 4 craft contains both a lunar lander and a six-wheeled rover. The spacecraft entered lunar orbit on Dec. 12 before preparations for landing nudged the spacecraft into an elliptical lunar orbit, getting as close as 15 kilometres (around 9 miles) to the surface.

Unlike NASA's history-making mission to Mars in November and the agency's flyby of the mysterious Kuiper Belt Object 2014 MU69 on New Year's Day, China's landmark landing wasn't televised. Social media accounts on Chinese giant Weibo reported that the lunar probe touched down at around 6:26 p.m. PT but confirmation of the reports was hard to come by. After tweets by Chinese State-owned media outlets China Daily and China Global Television Network made their way online, the Twittersphere was abuzz... but the tweets were quickly deleted.

According to Andrew Jones, a journalist reporting on the Chinese space program, Chang'e 4's descent required "laser ranging and optical cameras for navigation, velocity and coarse hazard avoidance." Practically, this meant Chang'e 4 was on its own as it descended to the surface with its important scientific payload, on a side of the moon marked by rugged terrain.

NASA astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon almost 50 years ago, but navigating to the far side poses a unique communications challenge. Sometimes known as the "dark side" of the moon, even though it does receive sunlight, the far side never faces the Earth because of tidal locking. That means budding human (or robot) explorers have to find a way to establish and maintain radio contact.

To communicate with the Chang'e 4 mission on the moon's surface, the Chinese space agency launched the Queqiao relay satellite into a halo orbit over the dark side of the moon in May. The satellite overcomes the communications challenge, allowing the lander and rover to phone home, via relay, and send scientific data back.

Both the rover and the lander are equipped with a suite of instruments that will allow the Chinese space agency to study the geology of Von Kármán crater, including three cameras. The ancient crater, part of the 13 kilometre deep South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin, is believed to hold material kicked up from deep within the lunar soil due to an impact early on in the Moon's life, providing new insights on what makes up its interior. The lander also carries seeds and silkworm eggs within a sealed container and will examine whether the two lifeforms can thrive on the moon.

Other instruments, developed by Swedish and German engineers, will allow the lunar robots to better study solar wind, charged particles that burst forth from the sun's atmosphere. Payloads were also provided by partners in the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia.

The last lander on the moon was Chang'e 4's predecessor, Chang'e 3, which soft-landed in a crater known as the Mare Imbrium in December 2013. In January 2014, the rover underwent a mechanical control abnormality and ceased to transmit data in March 2015. However, the lander remains on the near side of the moon.

The moon really is the place to be in 2019, with various international space agencies ready to explore Earth's only natural satellite. Chang'e 4's mission is slated to last a year, but a subsequent lunar exploration mission -- Chang'e 5 -- is scheduled to launch toward the end of the year. If successful, it would be the first mission to the moon to return samples since Luna 24 in 1976.

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Taking It to Extremes: Mix insane situations -- erupting volcanoes, nuclear meltdowns, 30-foot waves -- with everyday tech. Here's what happens. </s> China is set to launch the world's first mission to the far side of the moon. Its Chang'e 4 robotic spacecraft is scheduled to lift off Friday at around 1:30 p.m. ET (2:30 a.m. in China, on Saturday, Dec. 8), Space.com reported.

The spacecraft will launch atop a Long March 3B rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the southwestern province of Sichuan. Plans call for Chang'e 4, which carries both a lander and a lunar rover, to touch down on the moon in early January.

"Anything we land on the moon is significant, but this one is especially so," David Paige, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said of the mission.

It is a successor to China's Chang'e 3 mission, which successfully placed a lander and rover on the moon's Earth-facing side in 2013.

Chang'e 4's planned landing site lies within the South Pole-Aitken basin. The sprawling basin, which is 8 miles deep and more than 1,500 miles across, is one of the moon's largest and oldest impact craters.

"This crater has the potential to tell us something about the creation of the Earth and moon system — how the moon formed, as well as how the early solar system evolved," Paige said. "Understanding exactly when this basin formed and how it relates to other lunar impact basins is key."

The lander and rover are each equipped with cameras. The rover also sports a ground-penetrating radar instrument designed to help scientists gain an understanding of the moon’s geological history as well as a spectrometer to study its chemical composition.

Chang’e 4 won't be returning any moon rocks to Earth, but a successor mission planned for 2019, Chang'e 5, will. This would be the first time that materials from the moon have been brought back to Earth since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 mission in 1976.

"These missions are taking place in rapid succession, and that also demonstrates the resolve of this program to move forward toward the eventual goal of putting Chinese astronauts on the lunar surface," Bradley Jolliff, a planetary scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, told NBC News MACH in an email.

China has also announced plans to launch a rover to Mars in 2020, as well as additional crewed missions to low-Earth orbit.

China had been constructing its own space station, Tiangong-2. But a rocket glitch in July 2017 derailed the effort, and China is now planning to de-orbit the 8.6-ton space lab next summer, Space News reported. In April, China's defunct Tiangong-1 space station plummeted through Earth's atmosphere and burned up over the Pacific Ocean.

China, the U.S. and Russia are the only nations to have successfully landed spacecraft on the moon.

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• Scientists discover water ice on moon's surface. Here's why that's big news. </s> In a first for any country, China has successfully landed a rover on the far side of the lunar surface. The state media announced on Thursday that its space agency has successfully landed a rover on the far side of the moon. This is a huge milestone as the country aims to become a leader in the space programs carried out around the world. The China’s National Space Administration (CNSA) landed the Chang’e 4 lunar probe in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, which is an impact crater, at 10:26AM Beijing time on Thursday, according to a report by China Central Television (CCTV).

The report notes that the rover made its final descent from a landing orbit 15 kilometers above the moon’s surface. The rover, after landing, transmitted back the world’s first close range image of the far side of the moon. The state media did not share any other details of this historic landing. The announcement came in a controversial moment after the state media outlets China Daily and China Global Television Network (CGTN) deleted posts on social media where they claimed the mission a success.

The posts deleted by Chinese media raises a speculation as to whether the probe really landed on the far side of the lunar surface. Landing a probe on the far side of the moon is an achievement since it is the hemisphere that never faces earth due to its rotation. It is even referred to as the “dark side of the moon” and it received as much sunlight as the side facing the earth.

The state media reported that the Chang’e lunar mission lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province on December 8 and entered the moon’s orbit four days later. Once safely on the moon, the lander will conduct the first lunar low-frequency radio astronomy experiment. Its other to-do include observing whether plants will grow in the low-gravity environment and then explore whether there is water or other resources at the poles.

“Since the far side of the moon is shielded from electromagnetic interference from the Earth, it’s an ideal place to research the space environment and solar bursts, and the probe can ‘listen’ to the deeper reaches of the cosmos,” Tongjie Liu, deputy director of the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center for the China National Space Administration, was quoted by CNN.

The Chang’e 4 rover is 1.5 meters long and about 1 meter wide and tall. It has two foldable solar panels and six wheels and it is free from interference from radio frequencies. Another function of the mission is to study the interaction between solar winds and the moon surface using a new rover. This landing shows China‘s intent to become a leader in space technologies as other agencies aim to send humans to Martian space and establish a habitat there. </s> China’s space programme scored a major victory on Thursday morning when the Chang’e 4 lunar spacecraft landed on the dark side of the moon, territory that has never before been explored.

The probe completed the world’s first ever soft-landing on the uncharted far side at 10.26am Hong Kong time, and almost immediately transmitted a “close range” image of the mysterious land back to Earth.

The photograph showed Chang’e was sitting in a relatively flat area with a small crater just metres away. The mountain range of the Von Karman crater could be seen in the distance.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) said the mission had “lifted the mysterious veil” from the far side of the moon, which is permanently blocked from view from Earth, and “opened a new chapter in human lunar exploration”.

“China is making a tremendous effort to become a space power. This mission will be a landmark event in this endeavour,” Wu Weiren, chief scientist of the Chang’e 4 programme, said in an interview with state broadcaster China Central Television.

“It is a perfect display of human intelligence,” said Jia Yang, the probe’s deputy chief designer from the China Academy of Space Technology was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

China’s Chang’e 4 lunar probe sends first photo of far side of the moon after historic soft landing

But making a soft and successful landing is just the start. The next stage of the mission, according to the CNSA, is for Chang’e 4 to release a rover to explore the surrounding area, fire up ground penetration radar to map the moon’s inner structures, analyse soil and rock samples for minerals and chemicals with potential economic values, and activate a radio telescope to search for possible signals from distant universes.

The probes also carried a canister filled with air, soil, water, bacterium, silkworm eggs, the seeds of a small flowering plant and a potato. Scientists hope that the small eco-system will spring to life and produce the first blossoming flowers on the moon in about three months’ time.

Dr Chen Hongqiao, a researcher at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in the south China city of Guangzhou, said the landing could intensify the space race between China and the United States.

“Today the fight [between China and the US] is on trade. Tomorrow it can be on the moon,” he said.

The US government recently announced an ambitious plan to colonise the moon with a permanent outpost. The first stage of such a programme would involve Nasa building a space station, known as a lunar orbital platform, within the moon’s orbit, which would serve as a gateway to future settlements.

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Dr Zhu Jin, the director of Beijing Planetarium, said the new race between China and the US to the moon would be “very different” from the previous one between the US and the former Soviet Union during the cold war.

“The previous one was largely driven by politics,” Zhu said. “This race will be mainly driven by a genuine interest in the moon itself and potential business opportunities.”

The former Soviet Union launched the world’s first lunar satellite in 1959, while the US achieved six manned landings. Of the 265 spacecraft sent towards the moon by all nations, only one US probe made it to the far side, but it crashed.

Plainly aware of the risks involved in the Chang’e 4 mission, China decided not to broadcast it live so as to reduce the pressure on the scientists and engineers involved, according to a researcher with knowledge of the matter.

China can be proud as Chang’e 4 lands on far side of the moon



During its landing, the 4 tonne Chang’e 4 lunar craft fired its reverse thrusters about 10:15am to reduce speed and made a steep descent towards one of the most deadly landing zones in the solar system, the CNSA said.

Unlike the relatively flat, smooth near side of the moon that faces the Earth, more than 90 per cent of the surface of the far side is rugged, featuring mountains twice the height of Everest.

Communication is also a challenge. Radio waves from Earth cannot reach the far side back of the moon, so Change 4’s link to the flight control centre in Beijing is dependent entirely on a small, distant relaying satellite called Queqiao.

During its descent, Chang’e 4 had to aim its antenna constantly at Queqiao to avoid losing contact. About 100 metres (330 feet) above the lunar surface, the spacecraft hovered automatically and scanned the area below with a high definition camera for unexpected rocks and slopes.

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Chang’e 4 was launched atop a Long March 3B carrier rocket on December 8 from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in southwest China’s Sichuan province. It entered lunar orbit four days later.

The Von Karman crater, about twice the size of Los Angeles, is named after Theodore von Karman, lead scientist of the early US space programme. Karmon is also the mentor of Hsue-Shen Tsien, the founding father of China’s space programme, so the landing site had significant meaning, state media said.

China was not without help on the Chang’e 4 mission. Scientists from The Netherlands contributed to the construction of a low frequency signal detector, while experts from Germany helped build the device to measure radioactivity on the lunar surface. Sweden provided the atomic detector and Saudi Arabia contributed a camera.

China also has plans to launch a returnable spacecraft – Chang’e 5 – by 2020, which will include a lunar lander and a rover that could return to Earth after collecting samples and performing lunar surveys. </s> China seems to be planning to send a spacecraft to the far side of the Moon this month. The Chang'e-4 spacecraft is slated for a December 8 take off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan. The spacecraft will be carrying a lander and a rover, that is said to touch down the surface on the lunar surface. No spacecraft has ever touched down on the surface of the moon's far side.

The lander and rover will be exploring and study the crater-marker far side of the Moon. The mission also includes the first radio astronomy experiments, reported Scientific American.

Chang'e-4 is the China National Space Administration's (CNSA) new move to fulfill its lunar aspirations. Back in 2013, the Chang'e-3 landed on the surface, which was followed by the announcement of a moon base.

If the new Chang'e-4 rover manages to successfully land on the surface, it will map the area around its landing site. The rover will measure the subsurface layer leveraging its ground-penetrating radar.

The CNSA hasn't revealed the landing site of the rover, though Zongcheng Ling, a planetary scientist at Shandong University, told Scientific American that the rover is most likely to land in Von Kármán, a 115-wide crater.

The Chang'e-4 is also assigned to prepare for future crewed missions and the CNAS's desired moon base. The rover will also study the growth of certain seeds sprout in a controlled on the moon's low-gravity surface.

"When we take the step towards long-term human habitation on the Moon or Mars, we will need greenhouse facilities to support us, and will need to live in something like a biosphere," Anna-Lisa Paul, a horticultural scientist at the University of Florida, told Scientific American.

Besides, the CNAS is also planning to launch the Chang'e-5 next year. The rover will be sent to collect and bring back the samples to Earth. </s> Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Far side of Moon captured by Chinese spacecraft

China says it has successfully landed a robotic spacecraft on the far side of the Moon, the first ever such attempt and landing.

At 10:26 Beijing time (02:26 GMT), the un-crewed Chang'e-4 probe touched down in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, state media said.

It is carrying instruments to analyse the unexplored region's geology, as well to conduct biological experiments.

The landing is being seen as a major milestone in space exploration.

There have been numerous missions to the Moon in recent years, but the vast majority have been to orbit, fly by or impact. The last crewed landing was Apollo 17 in 1972.

Why China has its eye on the stars

Image copyright EPA/CNSA Image caption All pictures and data have to be bounced off a separate satellite

The Chang'e-4 probe has already sent back its first pictures from the surface, which were shared by state media.

With no direct communication link possible, all pictures and data have to be bounced off a separate satellite before being relayed to Earth.

Why is this Moon landing so significant?

Previous Moon missions have landed on the Earth-facing side, but this is the first time any craft has landed successfully on the unexplored and rugged far side.

Some spacecraft have crashed into the far side, either after system failures, or after they had completed their mission.

Ye Quanzhi, an astronomer at Caltech, told the BBC this was the first time China had "attempted something that other space powers have not attempted before".

Image copyright EPA/CNSA Image caption The far side is not visible from the Earth due to "tidal locking"

The Chang'e-4 was launched from Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in China on 7 December; it arrived in lunar orbit on 12 December.

It was then directed to lower itself toward the Moon, being careful to identify and avoid obstacles, Chinese state media say.

The Chang'e-4 probe is aiming to explore a place called the Von Kármán crater, located within the much larger South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin - thought to have been formed by a giant impact early in the Moon's history.

"This huge structure is over 2,500km (1,550 miles) in diameter and 13km deep, one of the largest impact craters in the Solar System and the largest, deepest and oldest basin on the Moon," Andrew Coates, professor of physics at UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory in Surrey, told the BBC.

The event responsible for carving out the SPA basin is thought to have been so powerful, it punched through the Moon's crust and down into the zone called the mantle. Researchers will want to train the instruments on any mantle rocks exposed by the calamity.

The science team also hopes to study parts of the sheet of melted rock that would have filled the newly formed South Pole-Aitken Basin, allowing them to identify variations in its composition.

A third objective is to study the far-side regolith, the broken up rocks and dust that make up the surface, which will help us understand the formation of the Moon.

What else might we learn from this mission?

Chang'e-4's static lander is carrying two cameras; a German-built radiation experiment called LND; and a spectrometer that will perform low-frequency radio astronomy observations.

Scientists believe the far side could be an excellent place to perform radio astronomy, because it is shielded from the radio noise of Earth. The spectrometer work will aim to test this idea.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption A mock-up of the Chang'e-4 lander and rover, on display in Dongguan, China

The lander also carried a container with six live species from Earth - cotton, rapeseed, potato, fruit fly, yeast and arabidopsis (a flowering plant) - to try to form a mini biosphere.

The arabidopsis plant may produce the first flower on the Moon, Chinese state media say.

Other equipment/experiments include:

A panoramic camera

A radar to probe beneath the lunar surface

An imaging spectrometer to identify minerals

An experiment to examine the interaction of the solar wind (a stream of energised particles from the Sun) with the lunar surface

The mission is part of a larger Chinese programme of lunar exploration. The first and second Chang'e missions were designed to gather data from orbit, while the third and fourth were built for surface operations.

Chang'e-5 and 6 are sample return missions, delivering lunar rock and soil to laboratories on Earth.

Is there a 'dark side of the Moon'?

The lunar far side is often referred to as the "dark side", though "dark" in this case means "unseen" rather than "lacking light". In fact, both the near and far sides of the Moon experience daytime and nighttime.

But because of a phenomenon called "tidal locking", we see only one face of the Moon from Earth. This is because the Moon takes just as long to rotate on its own axis as it takes to complete one orbit of Earth.

The far side has a thicker, older crust that is pocked with more craters. There are also very few of the "maria" - dark basaltic "seas" created by lava flows - that are evident on the near side.

How will scientists keep track of the rover?

In an article for the US-based Planetary Society in September, Dr Long Xiao from the China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), said: "The challenge faced by a far side mission is communications. With no view of Earth, there is no way to establish a direct radio link."

So the landers must communicate with Earth using a relay satellite named Queqiao - or Magpie Bridge - launched by China last May.

Queqiao orbits 65,000km beyond the Moon, around a Lagrange point - a kind of gravitational parking spot in space where it will remain visible to ground stations in China and other countries such as Argentina.

What are China's plans in space?

China wants to become a leading power in space exploration, alongside the United States and Russia.

In 2017 it announced it was planning to send astronauts to the Moon.

It will also begin building its own space station next year, with the hope it will be operating by 2022.

The chief designer of China's lunar exploration programme, Wu Weiren, has described Thursday's landing as "an important milestone" for the country's space effort, state media report.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption A full-size model of the Tianhe core module of China's space station

The BBC's John Sudworth in Beijing says the propaganda value of China's leaps forward in its space programme has been tempered by careful media management. There was very little news of the Chang'e 4 landing attempt before the official announcement it had been a success.

But Fred Watson, who promotes Australia's astronomy endeavours as its astronomer-at-large, says the secrecy could simply be down to caution, similar to that shown by the Soviet Union in the early days of its competition with Nasa.

"The Chinese space agency is a young organisation, but perhaps in years to come, it will catch up," he told the BBC.

Ye Quanzhi says China has made efforts to be more open.

"They live-streamed the launch of Chang'e 2 and 3, as well as the landing of Chang'e 3. PR skills take time to develop but I think China will get there," he said.

China has been a late starter when it comes to space exploration. Only in 2003, it sent its first astronaut into orbit, making it the third country to do so, after the Soviet Union and the US.

The far side landing has already been heralded by experts at Nasa as "a first for humanity and an impressive accomplishment".
The China National Space Administration successfully launches Chang'e 4 from Xichang Satellite Launch Center which will attempt the first ever robotic landing on the far side of the Moon in 2019.