Beijing lands robot craft on dark side of the Moon
A Chinese spacecraft yesterday made the first-ever landing on the far side of the moon, state media said.
The lunar explorer Chang’e 4 touched down at 10.26am Bejing time, China Central Television said in a brief announcement at the top of its noon news broadcast.
The far side of the moon faces away from Earth and is relatively unexplored. It is also known as the dark side of the moon.
The pioneering landing demonstrates China’s growing ambitions as a space power. In 2013, Chang’e 3 was the first spacecraft to land on the moon since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 in 1976.
The mission of Chang’e 4, which is carrying a rover, includes carrying out lowfrequency radio astronomical observations and probing the structure and mineral composition of the terrain.
The Long March 3B rocket carrying Chang’e 4 blasted off on December 8 from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southern China.
In May, a relay satellite ‘‘Queqiao,’’ or ‘‘Magpie Bridge,’’ named after an ancient Chinese folk tale, was launched to provide communications support between Chang’e 4 and Earth.
China plans to send its Chang’e 5 probe to the moon next year and have it return to Earth with samples — the first time that will have been done since 1976.
The robot craft landed the South Pole-Aitken basin, the largest, oldest and deepest crater on the Moon.
Targeting the far side, or ‘‘dark side’’, of the Moon is riskier and more complex than previous ventures, including Chang’e-3’s mission to the Moon in 2013, since direct communication with the spacecraft is not possible and the terrain is rugged. The Moon is tidally locked to Earth, rotating at the same rate that it orbits our planet, so the far side is never visible from Earth. Previous spacecraft have photographed the far ‘dark side’ of the Moon, but none has ever landed on it.
The Chang’e-4 landed in the Von Karman crater, a flatter region located within the South Pole-Aitken Basin.
– AP/Telegraph Group