In a first, China lands probe on moon’s dark side

BEIJING: A Chinese space probe landed on the far side of the moon on Thursday, making it the first to touch down on the part never visible from earth.

State media hailed the softlanding by the Chang’e-4 probe on the dark side of the moon as an important milestone in China’s rapidly developing space programme and contribution to the world’s exploration of the moon.

Previous space expeditions had seen the dark side of the moon but none had landed there. The landing “lifted the mysterious veil” from the far side of the moon and “opened a new chapter in human lunar exploration”, China’s national broadcaster said.

The Chang’e-4 probe, carrying eight payloads including two developed through international cooperation, will conduct lowfrequency radio astronomical observation, survey the terrain and landforms, detect the mineral composition and shallow lunar surface structure and measure the neutron radiation and neutral atoms to study the environment, China National Space Administration (CNSA) said.

Chinese state television said the Chang’e-4 lunar probe, launched in December, made the “soft landing” and transmitted the first-ever “close range” image of the dark side of the moon.

“The probe, comprised of a lander and a rover, touched down at the preselected landing area at 177.6 degrees east longitude and 45.5 degrees south latitude on the far side of the moon at 10:26 am (Beijing Time),” the CNSA announced.

“With the communication assistance of the relay satellite Queqiao (Magpie Bridge) the probe sent back the first-ever close-up photograph of the moon’s far side, opening a new chapter in lunar exploration,” official Xinhua news agency said in a report.

“At 100 metres up, the probe hovered to identify obstacles and measured the slopes on the surface. After avoiding the obstacles, it selected a relatively flat area and descended vertically and slowly,” the report said.

“Then the probe landed in the Von Karman Crater in the South Pole-aitken Basin.

During the descending process, a camera on the probe took photos of the landing area.”

“It’s an important milestone for China’s space exploration,” said Wu Weiren, chief designer of China’s lunar exploration program. “It is a perfect display of human intelligence,” said Jia Yang, deputy chief designer of the Chang’e-4 probe, from the China Academy of Space Technology.

China’s space programme has launched six manned space missions until now.