China lands rover on far side of the moon
beijing — A Chinese space probe successfully touched down on the far side of the moon on Thursday, China’s space agency said, hailing the event as a historic first and a major achievement for the country’s space programme.
The Chang’e-4 lunar probe, launched in Decem- ber, made the “soft landing” at 0226 GMT and transmitted the first-ever “close range” image of the far side of the moon, the China National Space Administration said.
The moon is tidally locked to Earth, rotating at the same rate as it orbits our planet, so most of the far side — or “dark side” — is never visible to us. Previous spacecraft have seen the far side, but none has landed on it.
The landing “lifted the mysterious veil” of the far side of the moon and “opened a new chapter in human lunar exploration”, the agency said in a statement on its website, which included a wideangle colour picture of a crater from the moon’s surface. The probe, which has a lander and a rover, touched down at a targeted area near the moon’s south pole in the Von Karman Crater after entering the moon’s orbit in mid-December. —
beijing — A Chinese lunar rover landed on the far side of the moon on Thursday, in a global first that boosts Beijing’s ambitions to become a space superpower.
The Chang’e-4 probe touched down and sent a photo of the socalled “dark side” of the Moon to the Queqiao satellite, which will relay communications to controllers on Earth, state broadcaster CCTV said.
Beijing is pouring billions into its military-run space programme, with hopes of having a crewed space station by 2022, and of eventually sending humans to the moon.
The Chang’e-4 lunar probe mission — named after the Moon deity in Chinese mythology — launched in December from the southwestern Xichang launch centre. It is the second Chinese probe to land on the moon, following the Yutu (Jade Rabbit) rover mission in 2013.
Unlike the near side of the moon that offers many flat areas to touch down on, the far side is mountainous and rugged.
The moon is “tidally locked” to Earth in its rotation so the same side is always facing Earth.
Chang’e-4 is carrying six experiments from China and four from abroad, including low-frequency radio astronomical studies — aiming to take advantage of the lack of interference on the far side. The rover will also conduct mineral and radiation tests, the China National Space Administration has said, according to state news agency Xinhua.
It was not until 1959 that the Soviet Union captured the first images of the moon’s mysterious and heavily cratered “dark side”.
No lander or rover has ever previously touched the surface there, and it is no easy technological feat — China has been preparing for this moment for years.
A major challenge for such a mission was communicating with the robotic lander: as there is no direct “line of sight” for signals to the far side of the moon.
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.
In another extreme hurdle, during the lunar night — which lasts 14 Earth days — temperatures drop to as low as minus 173 degrees Celsius (minus 279 Fahrenheit). During the lunar day, also lasting 14 Earth days, temperatures soar as high as 127 C (261 F). —