China Lands on Moon

China has successfully landed its spacecraft on the far side of the Moon, making it as the nation with bona fide space power. The mission, named Chang’e 4 was launched from China in December and landed on Wednesday at 10:26 a.m. Beijing time in the Von Karman crater within the Moon’s South Pole-Aitken basin, which is the largest known impact crater in the solar system.

Immediately after landing, the rover on the landing craft sent the first photo of the Moon’s surface from its far backside to Earth through a satellite communication relay. The landing “marked a new chapter in the human race’s lunar and space exploration”, the China National Space Administration or CNSA said in a statement.

Mission spokesman Yu Guobin said, “The far side of the moon is a rare quiet place that is free from interference of radio signals from Earth. This probe can fill the gap of low-frequency observation in radio astronomy and will provide important information for studying the origin of stars and nebula evolution”.

Chang’e 4 is the latest in a series, which is aimed at exploring the Moon and paving the way for Chinese astronauts to eventually land on the lunar surface. The Chang’e 4 mission is mainly scientific. It will use its cameras and ground-penetrating radar to understand the composition of Von Karman crater within the Aitken basin, which is a very special location. In Chinese mythology, Chang’e is the name of a goddess who lived on the moon.

Although Russia, the United States and China have operated robotic spacecraft on the moon in the past, Chang’e 4 is the first to land softly on the side of the satellite that always faces away from the Earth. But the geology on this side of the moon is different with more craters and less proof of volcanic activity, making it difficult to explore, because scientists on Earth cannot communicate through direct radio signal with spacecraft in this remote region, but now with China’s relay satellite, the problem is solved.

After landing, the mission transmitted an orange tinted, high definition photo of the Moon’s lightly pockmarked surface on Thursday. The landing also established China’s ambitions to become a space power and scientific force in an era when NASA funding has been shrinking as a percentage of the US federal budget.

China spends more on scientific research than any nation but the United States has launched more rockets than any other country in the year 2018. China is planning to provide worldwide Internet by 2026 and in December, it has announced its plan to launch global service for BeiDou, a homegrown satellite navigation system that is designed to compete with the US Global Positioning System (GPS) ahead of its schedule.

China is not the only nation with its eye on the lunar surface. India, Israel and Germany also have lander missions planned in the next couple of years and the Russian and Japanese space agencies are aiming to send spacecraft to the Moon in early 2020.