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Rugged patch: The ‘dark side’ of the moon as seen from the Chinese lunar rover after landing. — AFP
BEIJING: A Chinese lunar rover landed on the far side of the moon, 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 so-called “dark side” of the moon to the Queqiao satellite, which will relay communications to controllers on Earth, China’s national space agency said on its website.
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 goddess 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 moon’s far side.
The rover will also conduct mineral and radiation tests, the China National Space Administration has said.
“It’s a very good start,” said Wu Weiren, chief designer of China’s lunar exploration programme, in an interview with state broadcaster CCTV. “We are now building China into an aerospace power.”
Beijing is planning to send another lunar lander, Chang’e-5, later this year to collect samples and bring them back to Earth.
It is among a slew of ambitious Chinese targets, which include a reusable launcher by 2021, a super-powerful rocket capable of delivering payloads heavier than those Nasa and private rocket firm SpaceX can handle, a moon base, a permanently crewed space station and a Mars rover.
The People’s Liberation Army “looks at space as a new strategic high ground”, said Michael Raska, who studies security and defence issues at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. — AFP
Chang'e-4 made the first-ever soft landing on the far
side of the moon at 10:26 Thursday morning, marking a breakthrough in
human exploration of the universe, according to a statement ...
China's Chang'e-4 lunar probe was launched earlier this
month, and it is expected to make the first-ever soft landing on the far
side of the moon.
During the mission, China has ...
A Long March 3B rocket
launches China’s Chang'e 4 lunar probe from the Xichang Satellite Launch
Center on Dec. 7, 2018 (Dec. 8 local Chinese time). The probe is
expected to make the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the moon
in early January 2019.
Credit: Jiang Hongjing/Xinhua/Zuma
Probe on far side of moon
BEIJING: China launched a rover 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 early yesterday on a Long March 3B rocket from the south-western Xichang launch centre at 2.23am (local time), 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.
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 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.
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. — AFP
Exploring new terrain: A Long March 3B rocket
taking off with the rover that is destined to land on the far side of
the moon. — AFP
China's robotic Chang'e 4 spacecraft streaked away from Earth today (Dec. 7), launching atop a Long March 3B rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center at about 1:23 p.m. EST (1823 GMT; 2:23 a.m. on Dec. 8 local China time).
If all goes according to plan, Chang'e 4 will make history's first landing on the lunar far side sometime in early January. The mission, which consists of a stationary lander and a rover, will perform a variety of science work and plant a flag for humanity in a region that remains largely unexplored to date. [China's Moon Missions Explained (Infographic)]
China’s Chang'e 4 lunar probe lifts off the pad at Xichang Satellite Launch Center on Dec. 7, 2018 (Dec. 8 local Chinese time).
Going where no probe has gone before
The moon is tidally locked to Earth, meaning the natural satellite
takes about the same amount of time to spin once on its axis as it does
to orbit our planet. So, here on Earth, we always see the same face of
our cosmic neighbor.
That would be the near side. The far side remains forever out of view,
and that explains why this obscured surface has yet to welcome a robotic
visitor. Communicating with a far-side lander or rover is difficult,
because the entirety of the moon's solid, rocky body would block direct
signals traveling to and fro.
The far side of the moon and distant Earth, imaged by China's Chang'e 5 T1 mission service module in
2014. The Chang'e 4 mission will launch toward the far side on Dec. 7,
2018.
Credit: Chinese Academy of Sciences To solve this problem, China launched a satellite called Queqiao this
past May. Queqiao has set up shop at the Earth-moon Lagrange point 2, a
gravitationally stable spot beyond the moon from which the satellite
will be able to relay communications between mission control and Chang'e
4.
The spacecraft's signals will likely be coming from the floor of Von Kármán Crater,
a 115-mile-wide (186 kilometers) hole in the ground that's the
mission's expected landing site. Von Kármán is part of the South
Pole-Aitken Basin, one of the biggest impact features in the solar
system; it spans a whopping 1,600 miles (2,500 km) from rim to rim.
China's Yutu moon rover, photographed by the Chang'e 3 lander in December of 2013. The lunar
far-side mission, Chang'e 4, which launched on Dec. 7, 2018, was
designed as a backup for Chang'e 3.
Credit: CASC/China Ministry of Defense
Lots of data
Chang'e 4 features a total of eight scientific instruments. The
landers' are called the Landing Camera (LCAM), the Terrain Camera
(TCAM), the Low Frequency Spectrometer (LFS), and the Lunar Lander
Neutrons and Dosimetry (LND), which was provided by Germany.
The rover sports the Panoramic Camera (PCAM), the Lunar Penetrating
Radar (LPR), the Visible and Near-Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (VNIS),
and the Advanced Small Analyzer for Neutrals (ASAN), a contribution from
Sweden.
This gear will allow Chang'e 4 to characterize its surroundings in
great detail. For example, the LFS will return data about surface
composition, while the LPR will tease out the layered structure of the
moon's subsurface.
Such information could help scientists better understand why the lunar
far side is so different from the near side. For example, huge, dark
basaltic plains called maria cover much of the near side but almost none
of the far side. (By the way, don't call the far side the "dark side";
it receives just as much sunlight as the near side.)
Chang'e 4 will also conduct some radio-astronomy work, taking advantage
of the peace and quiet on the far side, which is shielded from the
radio chatter coming from Earth. Queqiao is collecting astronomy data as
well, using an onboard instrument called the Netherlands-China Low-Frequency Explorer.
The spacecraft carries a biological experiment as well: a small tin containing silkworm eggs and seeds of tomato and Arabidopsis plants. Researchers will keep tabs on how these organisms live and develop on the lunar surface. [Moon Master: An Easy Quiz for Lunatics]
March to the moon
Chang'e 4 marks the latest step in China's ambitious, long-term moon-exploration strategy.
The nation launched the Chang'e 1 and Chang'e 2 spacecraft to lunar
orbit in 2007 and 2010, respectively. In December 2013, Chang'e 3 put a lander and a rover named Yutu down
on the moon's near side. (Chang'e 4 was originally developed as a
backup to Chang'e 3 but was repurposed after the latter's success.)
And in October 2014, China launched Chang'e 5T1, which sent a test
capsule on an eight-day trip around the moon that ended in a parachute-aided touchdown here on Earth.
All of this is leading up to the Chang'e 5 sample-return mission, which
could launch toward the near side as early as next year. (The nation's
line of robotic lunar missions is named after Chang'e, a moon goddess in
Chinese mythology.)
And then there's the crewed side of things. Chinese officials have said
they want to land people on the lunar surface, though the timeline for
this goal is unclear. The moon is not China's human-spaceflight focus in
the near term; the country is working to get a crewed space station up
and running in Earth orbit by the early 2020s.
China’s Chang'e 4 lunar probe lifts off the pad at Xichang Satellite Launch Center on Dec. 7, 2018 (Dec. 8 local Chinese time).
