03/01/2019

China's Chang’e 4 spacecraft touches down on dark side of moon

Update 11 Mar 2019



 See China’s Chang’e 4 on moon’s far side
Image of the moon’s far side, taken January 30, 2019, via NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). At the time of this image, LRO was 205 miles (330 km) east of the landing site. Thus the Chang’e 4 lander is only about two pixels across (bright spot between the two arrows), and the smaller Yutu-2 rover is not detectable. For a closer look, see the image below this. Image via LROC.

 The first-ever successful landing on the far side of the moon took place just last month – January 3, 2019 – when the the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) safely set down its Chang’e 4 spacecraft. One month later, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) passed over the spot where the Chinese spacecraft and rover rested on the lunar surface. It rolled 70 degrees to the west to acquire the spectacular image above.

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 NASA released the LRO images on February 8, 2019. The first new image – shown above – was taken on January 30, 2019. It shows the landing site in an oblique limb-shot view, looking across the floor of Von Kármán crater. Only the lander, not the smaller rover (called Yutu-2), was visible in this image, since LRO was over 124 miles (200 km) from the area at the time. Even the lander was only a few pixels across.

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 NASA Probe Spots China's Chang'e 4 Lander on Far Side of the Moon (Photo)
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured this view of China’s Chang’e 4 lander on Jan. 30, 2019. The area around the lander is enlarged by a factor of two relative to the native pixel scale; the bright speck between two arrows is the lander. The large crater in the center (just right and below arrows) is about 1,440 feet (440 meters) wide.(Image: © NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University)

 China's history-making Chang'e 4 mission has been spied by one of its robotic moon-studying brethren.

 NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) recently caught a glinty glimpse of the Chang'e 4 lander, which on Jan. 2 became the first-ever spacecraft to make a soft touchdown on the moon's mysterious far side.

 On Jan. 30, LRO rolled 70 degrees to the west as it approached Chang'e 4's landing site, the floor of the 115-mile-wide (186 kilometers) Von Kármán Crater. The maneuver brought the Chinese lander into view for LRO, though the mission's rover, named Yutu 2 ("Jade Rabbit 2"), escaped detection. [Photos from the Moon's Far Side! China's Chang'e 4 Lunar Landing in Pictures].

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 Chang’e 4 real shot landing video release
Schematic diagram of the landing of the Chang’e 4 on the back of the moon (Source: Xinhua News Agency)

 On January 11, 2019, the National Space Administration released a video of the real shot of the Chang’e 4.

 At 10:26 on January 3, the Chang’e 4 successfully landed on the back of the moon to pre-select the landing zone. The Chang’e 4 landing camera recorded part of the landing process.

 嫦娥 Chang’e 4 real shot landing video ( click here to download video)

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 Watch China's Chang'e-4 probe land on the far side of the moon

 On Jan. 2, China stunned the world by landing its Chang'e-4 probe on the far side of the moon.

 Now, you can watch its descent onto the lunar surface, with footage released by the China National Space Administration on Friday.

 The video shows the probe finding its way to the Von Kármán Crater, where it will study the surface on the far side of the moon, which always faces away from Earth.

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 China declares Chang'e-4 mission complete success
Photo taken by the lander of the Chang'e-4 probe on Jan. 11, 2019 shows the rover Yutu-2 (Jade Rabbit-2). China announced Friday that the Chang'e-4 mission, which realized the first-ever soft-landing on the far side of the moon, was a complete success. With the assistance of the relay satellite Queqiao (Magpie Bridge), the rover Yutu-2 (Jade Rabbit-2) and the lander of the Chang'e-4 probe took photos of each other. (Xinhua/China National Space Administration)

 BEIJING, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) -- China announced Friday that the Chang'e-4 mission, which realized the first-ever soft-landing on the far side of the moon, was a complete success.

 With the assistance of the relay satellite Queqiao (Magpie Bridge), the rover Yutu-2 (Jade Rabbit-2) and the lander of the Chang'e-4 probe took photos of each other.

 The scientific instruments aboard the probe worked well, and the images taken by the probe and detection data have been sent back to ground control, said the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

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 Stunning new images show what the Chang'e-4 mission has been up to
YUTU-2 DRIVE MAP THROUGH 3 MARCH 2019

 China has all but shut down to welcome the Year of the Pig and Yutu-2 is taking a precautionary midday nap, but the Chang’e-4 mission is still sending us some new and brilliant footage from its various spacecraft—while also being snapped by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

 First up an update on the Chang’e-4 landing party, which is into its second lunar day. Yutu-2 woke up on 29 January and started moving northwest within Von Kármán crater until entering standby mode on 4 January while the Sun is high in the sky. The lander awoke on 30 January after recording a low of -190 degrees Celsius (-310 F) during the lunar nighttime, using a small radioisotope thermoelectric generator.

 Then, on 4 February, we got to see newly-released footage of Yutu-2 and the deployment of the five-meter booms for the Low Frequency Spectrometer radio astronomy instrument.

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 China is a space nation

China’s space programme has hit a new milestone.

A Chinese spacecraft has made history on Jan. 3, 2019 by successfully touching down on the dark side of the moon that does not face Earth and has never been explored.

The confirmation of the landing came in the form of a tweet by Global Times, widely regarded as a Chinese state mouthpiece.

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