BEIJING: China’s trailblazing space program aims to successfully execute the first landing on the far side of the moon.
Tentatively scheduled to occur before 2020, the Chang’e 4 mission’s objective is to study the geological conditions on the far side in hopes of laying the groundwork for the placement of a radio telescope. Such technology would fill a large gap in man’s understanding of the universe, said Zou Yongliao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ moon exploration department in a statement last week.
Presently radio transmissions from Earth are unable to reach the moon’s far side, also known as the dark side.
Chang’e 4 is another ambitious step for China’s lunar exploration program, named Chang’e after the mythical Chinese moon god, which has previously launched a pair of orbiting lunar probes and landed a rover on the moon’s surface in 2013. Expected for 2017 is the launch of an unmanned lander capable of collecting two kilograms of lunar samples and returning them to Earth. Only two other nations — the United States and Russia — have ever successfully carried out such a maneuver.
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