BEIJING (AP) — China's increasingly ambitious space program plans to attempt the first-ever landing of a lunar probe on the moon's far side, a leading engineer said. 
 
 The Chang'e 4 mission is planned for sometime before 2020, Zou Yongliao from the Chinese Academy of Sciences' moon exploration department told state broadcaster CCTV in an interview broadcast on Wednesday. 
 
 Zou said the mission's objective would be to study geological conditions on the moon's far side, also known as the dark side. 
 
 That could eventually lead to the placement of a radio telescope for use by astronomers, something that would help "fill a void" in man's knowledge of the universe, Zou said. 
 
 Radio transmissions from Earth are unable to reach the moon's far side, making it an excellent location for sensitive instruments. 
 
 China's next lunar mission is scheduled for 2017, when it will attempt to land an unmanned spaceship on the moon before returning to Earth with samples. If successful, that would make China only the third country after the United States and Russia to have carried out such a maneuver. 
 
 China's lunar exploration program, named Chang'e after a mythical goddess, has already launched a pair of orbiting lunar probes, and in 2013 landed a craft on the moon with a rover onboard. 
 
 China has also hinted at a possible crewed mission to the moon. 
 
 China sent its first astronaut into space in 2003 and has powered ahead with a series of methodically timed steps, including the deploying of an experimental space station. ||||| China is planning on sending the first-ever lunar probe to the dark side of the moon by 2020, a leading engineer announced on state-run television. The goal of the mission would be to examine the geological conditions there with the ultimate aim of installing a radio telescope. 
 
 China's lunar exploration program -- known as Chang'e -- is leading the mission, Zou Yongliao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' moon exploration department told CCTV in an interview shown Wednesday. A successful landing, which would be the first of its kind, could enable the Chinese to place radio transmitters on the far side of the moon, which currently can't be reached with transmissions from Earth. This new look at the universe woud “fill a void” in humanity's understanding of outer space, Zou said, as quoted by the Associated Press. 
 
 The dark side of the moon is not visible from Earth. While China became the third country (after the United States and the Soviet Union) to land a probe on lunar soil in 2013, reaching the dark side of the moon will require more satellite technology to communicate with the probe, simply because the moon itself is blocking radio transmissions. 
 
 “The communication problem will be solved by having a spacecraft orbiting the moon to relay radio signals from the far side of the moon back to earth,” Michael Brown, an observational astronomer at Monash University in Austrailia, told Al Jazeera. “This shouldn't be too difficult a problem to solve, given spacecraft orbiting Mars regularly relay signals from the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers that are driving around on that planet.” ||||| Relay station will eventually let teams on the ground talk to a lunar probe that China plans to launch this year in world-first mission 
 
 China aims to land on far side of moon via launch of 'Magpie Bridge' satellite 
 
 China is one step closer to being the first country to land on the far side of the moon. 
 
 At 5.28am on Monday, the Queqiao relay satellite was launched from Sichuan province, according to Chinese state media. With Queqiao in place, China will be able to send a lunar probe to the side of the moon that never faces the Earth. No space programme has ever reached that part of the lunar surface because of communications difficulties. 
 
 Tiangong-1 crash: Chinese space station comes down in Pacific Ocean Read more 
 
 In a few days Queqiao will enter the moon’s orbit, about 455,000km (282,000 miles) from Earth. Queqiao – which means “Magpie Bridge” and comes from a Chinese folk story in which an arc formed by birds reunites two lovers separated by the heavens – will then act as a bridge between ground stations and the lunar probe. 
 
 China plans to send its lunar lander and rover, Chang’e 4, to the far side of the moon by the end of this year. The lunar probe will carry seeds for growing potatoes and arabidopsis, a flowering plant related to cabbage, for a “lunar mini biosphere” experiment. 
 
 “The launch is a key step for China to realise its goal of being the first country to send a probe to soft-land and probe the far side of the moon,” said Zhang Lihua, manager of the relay satellite project, according to state news agency Xinhua. 
 
 A four-minute video of the assembling of the rocket and satellite, accompanied by dramatic background music, was posted by state media outlets on social media on Monday. “My country is awesome,” one internet user wrote on Weibo. “Our conquest is the sea of stars.” 
 
 For the past decade, China has embarked on a space programme aimed largely at catching up to space powers such as the US and Russia. In 2013, China became the third country to make a soft landing on the moon. 
 
 
 
 Chinese space officials aim to attempt a human landing in 15 years. The China National Space Administration released a video in April showcasing its planned outpost, a “lunar palace” on the far side of the moon, with cabins for scientists. 
 
 Queqiao will also carry a radio antennae that researchers will use to study the early universe, what astronomers call the “cosmic dark ages” after the big bang and before the first stars in the universe were formed. 
 
 Being in the shadow of the moon blocks electromagnetic interference from Earth, offering a better view of radio signals in the universe and enabling researchers to “listen” to the cosmos, according to Liu Tongjie, deputy director of China’s Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center. 
 
 • This article was amended on 22 May 2018 because an earlier version referred to the “dark side” of the moon, rather than the “far side”.
– If everything goes to plan with China's space program—which so far everything has since the country launched its first astronaut in 2003—it will become the first country to land a probe on the "dark side of the moon," the AP reports. This week, Zou Yongliao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced plans to send a probe designated Chang'e 4 to the moon's far side by 2020, according to the Asia Times. "China will be the first to complete the task if it is successful," Zou said. In 2013, China became the third country to land a probe—Chang'e 3—on the moon, following the United States and Soviet Union. China plans to study the geology of the far side of the moon—which is never visible from Earth—in order to put a radio telescope there. The dark side of the moon would be ideal for studying radio waves because the moon itself blocks any interfering waves coming from Earth. However, that also makes landing a probe on the moon's far side more difficult, according to the International Business Times. Without radio signals from Earth, China will require additional satellite technology to communicate with the probe. In the meantime, the AP reports that China will be sending an unmanned spaceship to and from the moon to collect samples in 2017. (NASA recently captured an amazing shot of the far side of the moon.)