Chang'e 4 far-side landing

Chang'e 4 · 2018 CE – 2019 CE · The Moon

Chang'e 4 far-side landing — Chang'e 4 · 2018 CE – 2019 CE · The Moon — Recorded expedition route · schematic map

Land on the far side of the Moon, in the South Pole–Aitken basin, and explore it with a rover, talking to Earth through the Queqiao relay satellite.

Historical context

Because the far side never faces Earth, the China National Space Administration first stationed a relay satellite, Queqiao, beyond the Moon in 2018. Chang'e 4, built as the backup of Chang'e 3, then landed in Von Kármán crater on 3 January 2019: by China's announcement, the first spacecraft to soft-land on the far side, which Luna 3 had photographed in 1959 and Ranger 4 had struck in 1962.

The voyage, step by step

  1. A bridge of magpies

    7 December 2018

    At 18:23 UTC on 7 December 2018, 02:23 on 8 December in Beijing, a Long March 3B lifts Chang'e 4 off from Xichang; a relay satellite launched in May already waits beyond the Moon.

  2. Behind the Moon

    3 January 2019

    On 3 January 2019, at 10:15 Beijing time, controllers send the order and Chang'e 4 fires its engine fifteen kilometres above the far side, with no one able to watch it directly.

  3. Into the oldest scar

    2019 CE

    The target lies inside the South Pole–Aitken basin, a hole about 2,500 kilometres wide that the physicist Andrew Coates called the largest, deepest and oldest basin on the Moon.

  4. Touchdown on the far side

    3 January 2019

    At 10:26 Beijing time, 02:26 UTC, the lander settles on the floor of Von Kármán crater; CNSA announces the first soft landing on the Moon's far side.

  5. Yutu-2 rolls off

    3 January 2019

    At 22:22 Beijing time, 14:22 UTC, about twelve hours after the landing, the six-wheeled rover Yutu-2 rolls down its ramps onto the far side.

  6. A seed that sprouted

    2019 CE

    Inside a sealed canister on the lander, a cotton seed puts out a shoot, in what Andrew Jones called the first test of plant growth in the environment of the Moon.

Outcome

Landed in Von Kármán crater on 3 January 2019, by CNSA's announcement the first soft landing on the far side; the rover Yutu-2, built for three months, later passed Lunokhod 1's longevity record and had driven 1,613 metres by September 2024.

Chang'e 4

Chinese lander and rover that made, by CNSA's announcement, the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon, on 3 January 2019.

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Sources

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