Chang’e-4 is second spacecraft in Chinese mission to land on far side of the moon

China’s lunar lander Chang’e-4 has successfully entered orbit around the moon.

After a voyage of 240,000 miles (385,000km) that lasted 110 hours, the spacecraft fired its retrorockets on 12 December while just 80 miles above the lunar surface. This placed it in a stable elliptical orbit, where it will stay until the landing attempt, which is expected next month.

Chang’e-4 was launched on 7 December atop a Long March-3B rocket from Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in China’s Sichuan province.

Spacewatch: China readies for part one of mission to far side of the moon Read more

It is the second spacecraft in the China National Space Administration’s (CNSA) mission to attempt the first landing on the far side of the moon.

The first spacecraft, a communications relay satellite called Queqiao, launched on 20 May and is now stationed in its operational orbit about 40,000 miles beyond the moon.

A relay satellite is needed because once the lander is on the far side of the moon, it will not be in sight of Earth.

A date for the landing attempt has not yet been announced but it is likely to take place in early January after mission controllers have tested all systems.

The spacecraft carries experiments and instruments from a number of countries including Germany, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia and Sweden.</s>China’s Chang’e-4 lunar mission, the first-ever soft-landing endeavor on the lunar farside, launched successfully on 8 December at 02:23 Beijing time (7 December at 18:23 UTC) via a Long March 3B rocket from Xichang Satellite Launch Center. The launch carried a lander and a rover toward the Moon. On 12 December at 8:45 Beijing time (16:45 UTC), the spacecraft arrived in lunar orbit, preparing for a landing in early January.

The launch placed Chang’e-4 directly into a 200- by 420,000-kilometer Earth-Moon transfer orbit, similar to the paths of Chang’e-2, -3 and Queqiao. (Chang’e-1 orbited Earth 3 times before moving to an Earth-Moon transfer orbit). This type of transfer orbit typically takes 4 to 5 days, and navigators plan 2 or 3 trajectory correction maneuvers (TCMs) to adjust the path. Actually, Chang’e-4 required only one TCM:
• The first TCM, which was planned for 8 December at about 19:42 Beijing time (11:42 UTC), was canceled because the trajectory was deemed accurate enough.
• The second TCM was carried out on 9 December at 16:42 Beijing time December 9 (8:42 UTC).
• The third TCM, which was planned for about 24 hours ahead of the braking maneuver (11 December at about 16:42 Beijing time or 8:42 UTC), was also canceled because the second maneuver had placed the vehicle on an accurate enough trajectory.

Canceling maneuvers leaves reserve fuel on the spacecraft for the landing phase.

During the Earth-Moon transfer phase, amateur radio astronomer Scott Tilley tracked Chang’e-4 several times. For example, he told us Chang’e-4 was about 366,000 kilometers away from Earth on 11 December at about 05:40 Beijing time (10 December at 21:40 UTC) and was on its expected orbit. (He is also keeping tabs on Chang'e-5 T1, still communicating with Earth from a stable lunar orbit.)

Today, the China National Space Agency (CNSA) announced successful lunar orbit insertion via Xinhua news. The command for the braking maneuver burn was issued on 12 December at 16:39 Beijing time (08:39 UTC), and Chang’e-4 successfully inserted into lunar orbit with a perilune of about 100 kilometers at 16:45 (8:45 UTC).

Now that Chang’e-4 has already entered lunar orbit, why is it waiting 20 more days to land? There are probably several reasons.

Engineers have work yet to do to prepare for landing. They will test instruments, test the relay link with Queqiao, and so on. They may need to adjust the orbit in order to better target the landing, which must be more precise on the rugged farside than Chang’e-3’s in the flat nearside maria.

They also have to wait for the Sun to rise in the landing region. The far side of the Moon is not the “dark side”, it has daytime and nighttime as we do. The difference is one lunar day is much longer, with about 14 earth days of daytime and about 14 earth days of nighttime.

You can check to see where it is day and night on the Moon easily at the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter QuickMap website. Open up the Layers tab, choose “Overlays,” and then tap the “Sunlit Region” button.

Here is the day and night region of lunar farside (left) and nearside (right) on 12 December at about 17:00 Beijing time (9:00 UTC). You can see that night is about to fall across the South Pole-Aiken Basin region, the target region of Chang’e-4’s landing.

The Sun will rise again around the New Year, so Chang’e-4 will probably land in the first few days of January 2019. The slow pace of sunrise and sunset will control the activity of Chang’e-4’s rover. Recall that the Chang’e-3 rover, Yutu, could not work at night due to the cold environment. It first roved onto the surface on 15 December 2013 and stopped on 24 December as the sun set. It resumed activity on 11 January 2014 when daytime returned.

The 180-kilometer-diameter crater Von Kármán (centered at 44.8°S 175.9°E) inside the South Pole-Aiken Basin seems to be the most likely landing site, although there seem to be other potential sites. But no matter where the exact location is, one thing is for sure: the topography of the landing site is much more rugged and complex than the flat Mare Imbrium, the landing site of Chang’e-3.

According to the reports on Chinese television, the landing of Chang’e-4 is much more challenging and risky than Chang’e-3 because of the difficult topography. The lander has to autonomously assess its altitude and velocity relative to the surface in order to land safely, which is why landing regions that are flat over a broad area are preferred.

Therefore, the landing strategy of Chang’e-4 will be a little different from Chang’e-3. Chang’e-4’s approach to landing will be much steeper, compared to the shallow landing trajectory of Chang’e-3.

Compared to launch and orbit insertion, landing will be the real challenge for Chang’e-4. Hope everything goes well!</s>A Chinese lander destined for the far side of the Moon - the side that always faces away from the Earth - has now entered lunar orbit, Space News reports.

Early Wednesday morning, the spacecraft carrying the Chang'e-4 lander completed its journey from Earth, which took nearly five days, and settled into an elliptical orbit around the Moon.

If the mission is successful, Chang'e-4 will be the first-ever lander to explore the so-called "dark side of the Moon".

It'll rove the lunar surface, examine the Moon's composition, and even dabble in amateur gardening with a small pod that'll grow seeds and silkworm larvae.

To communicate with the Earth, Chang'e-4 will bounce signals off a relay satellite launched earlier this year.

Chinese officials haven't announced a firm date or location for the craft's landing, but it's expected to touch down in early January 2019, probably in the spacious Von Kármán crater.

China is already planning Chang'e-5, the mission to come after Chang'e-4. If all goes according to plan, that will be China's first Moon mission to return samples back to Earth and it'll launch in late 2019.

This article was first published on Futurity and is republished here under a CC BY 4.0 license. Read the original article.</s>CHINA’S Chang’e-4 probe decelerated and entered a lunar orbit yesterday, completing a vital step on its way to making the first soft landing on the far side of the moon.

After traveling 110 hours from the Earth, an engine on the probe was ignited when it was 129km above the surface of the moon, said the China National Space Administration. The probe then slowed, and entered an elliptical lunar orbit at 100km above the surface. The probe, including a lander and a rover, was launched by a Long March-3B carrier rocket last Saturday from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center.

The control center will choose a proper time to land after testing communications.

The Chang’e-4 mission will be a key step in revealing the mysterious far side of the moon.

The scientific tasks of Chang’e-4 include low-frequency radio astronomical observation, surveying the terrain and landforms, detecting the mineral composition and shallow lunar surface structure, and measuring neutron radiation and neutral atoms.

China has promoted international cooperation, with four scientific payloads of Chang’e-4 developed by scientists from the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Saudi Arabia.</s>China launched the world's first mission to the far side of the moon today.

The Chang'e 4 robotic spacecraft lifted off Friday at around 1:23 p.m. ET (2:23 a.m. in China, on Saturday, Dec. 8), the New York Times reported.

The spacecraft launched atop a Long March 3B rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the southwestern province of Sichuan. Plans call for Chang'e 4, which carries both a lander and a lunar rover, to touch down on the moon in early January.

"Anything we land on the moon is significant, but this one is especially so," David Paige, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said of the mission.

It is a successor to China's Chang'e 3 mission, which successfully placed a lander and rover on the moon's Earth-facing side in 2013.

Chang'e 4's planned landing site lies within the South Pole-Aitken basin. The sprawling basin, which is 8 miles deep and more than 1,500 miles across, is one of the moon's largest and oldest impact craters.

"This crater has the potential to tell us something about the creation of the Earth and moon system — how the moon formed, as well as how the early solar system evolved," Paige said. "Understanding exactly when this basin formed and how it relates to other lunar impact basins is key."

The lander and rover are each equipped with cameras. The rover also sports a ground-penetrating radar instrument designed to help scientists gain an understanding of the moon’s geological history as well as a spectrometer to study its chemical composition.

Chang’e 4 won't be returning any moon rocks to Earth, but a successor mission planned for 2019, Chang'e 5, will. This would be the first time that materials from the moon have been brought back to Earth since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 mission in 1976.

"These missions are taking place in rapid succession, and that also demonstrates the resolve of this program to move forward toward the eventual goal of putting Chinese astronauts on the lunar surface," Bradley Jolliff, a planetary scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, told NBC News MACH in an email.

China has also announced plans to launch a rover to Mars in 2020, as well as additional crewed missions to low-Earth orbit.

China had been constructing its own space station, Tiangong-2. But a rocket glitch in July 2017 derailed the effort, and China is now planning to de-orbit the 8.6-ton space lab next summer, Space News reported. In April, China's defunct Tiangong-1 space station plummeted through Earth's atmosphere and burned up over the Pacific Ocean.

China, the U.S. and Russia are the only nations to have successfully landed spacecraft on the moon.

Want more stories about the moon?
• Scientists discover water ice on moon's surface. Here's why that's big news.</s>Stephen Curry, winner of the 2018 Kyrie Irving Conspiracy Theory Award (note: not a real award), said on a podcast that he doesn’t think man has ever landed on the moon, and mentioned a few popular conspiracy theories about the landing being faked. Not surprisingly, that didn’t go over too well with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, more commonly known as NASA.

After Curry’s comments about the moon landing started getting attention on Monday, the New York Times checked in with NASA. NASA has dealt with moon landing deniers and conspiracy theories before, and spokesman Allard Beutel was ready to give Curry a chance to change his mind.

“We’d love for Mr. Curry to tour the lunar lab at our Johnson Space Center in Houston, perhaps the next time the Warriors are in town to play the Rockets,” said Allard Beutel, a NASA spokesman. “We have hundreds of pounds of moon rocks stored there, and the Apollo mission control. During his visit, he can see firsthand what we did 50 years ago, as well as what we’re doing now to go back to the moon in the coming years, but this time to stay.”

An invitation to the NASA Space Center in Houston to look at moon rocks AND information about a future moon base? That’s an incredible offer from NASA. It’s not just about showing Curry proof of the moon landing, but educating him about how they managed to land men on the moon nearly 50 years ago, and what they hope to do on the moon in the future.

But if looking at moon rocks isn’t enough proof for Curry, both England and Russia independently tracked Apollo 11 from takeoff to moon landing and back again. They can provide third-party evidence that man actually landed on the moon. And if he wants some tough love about the moon landing he can talk to 88-year-old Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, who once punched a moon landing denier in the face.

Curry’s team, the Golden State Warriors, will play the Houston Rockets in Houston on March 13, 2019. As the NASA spokesman said, that would be the perfect time for Curry to visit the Space Center. Curry has yet to follow-up on his comments about the moon landing, but when he does, perhaps he’ll accept NASA’s invitation.

More from Yahoo Sports:
• Fired Packers coach makes puzzling Rodgers comment
• RB Bell celebrates Steelers’ shocking loss to Raiders
• Was this key play in ‘MNF’ game actually illegal?
• Emotional final meeting for Wade and LeBron</s>Blood moons occur during total lunar eclipses, when the Earth lines up between the Moon and the Sun, casting the Moon in near shadow. The only light that then hits our celestial satellite’s surface arrives from the edges of the our atmosphere. The remaining light reflects an eerie red glow onto the Blood Moon’s surface – a phenomena that some believe heralds the end of times.

And controversial American Pastor Begley believes key Biblical passages confirm this Super Blood Moon means the end of the world is nigh. One such “warning” is cited from the Book of Joel 2:31. The passage reads: “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.”

And Pastor Begley points to another “ominous” message in the Book of Revelation 6:12. This states: “And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.” Also in Acts 2:20: “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord come.” Pastor Begley said: “Is this an omen? READ MORE: Hunt for aliens ‘only just BEGINNING’ says top scientist

“Is this a sign of things that will happen in those following two years? “Well, this is definitely a sign of the end times and America plays a key role in the end times. The evangelical preacher from Indiana added “the heavens are already shaking” and the “coming of the Lord is fast approaching.” And though pastor Begley refused to say categorically the world will burn in hellfire within a month, he suggested this is a possible outcome of the Blood Moon. READ MORE: Mars Deep Drill: NASA plan to dig 10km hole in ALIEN LIFE search - REVEALED

How will the Blood Moon affect the Earth? Lunar eclipses, such as the Blood Moon, find the Sun and Moon at opposite sides of the Earth, putting the three astronomical bodies in the same orientation. When the sun and moon line up, it combines their gravitational pulls on the Earth’s seas. This causes higher high tides and lower low tides, known as Spring Tides. Additionally the moon is at perigee – the closest approach to the Earth – magnifying its gravitational pull and making tides more extreme. These Perigean Spring Tides occur around three or four annually.</s>Sputnik: So, professor, China has launched the first mission to land a robotic craft on the far side of the moon. That's according to the Chinese media. Why is it important to study the far side of the moon? How different is it from the observable part of our natural satellite?

Ian Crawford: So, it's important to know that no spacecraft has ever landed on the far side of the moon yet. So, this will be the first in the whole history of the space age. That makes it quite interesting for the research I write. Of course, over the years we do now know the geology of the moon on the far side is a little bit different from the near side, where all the Apollo missions and all of the other landers from the space age up to this point have landed. The far side is different.

The other thing, interesting about the far side is it contains the largest impact crater, known in the solar system the South Pole-Aitken basin, which is about 2,5 thousand kilometres in diameter, 12km deep, and this is the largest known in practice structure in the solar system and it's on the far side of the moon. Understanding that a bit more is also important for planetary science. That is where Chang'e-4 will bend, hopefully.

Sputnik: As a professor of planetary science and astrobiology, what else about this particular landing makes you most excited? What else are you anticipating?

Ian Crawford: I think, there are at least two answers. I mean, for space exploration just the fact that it is the first time anyone ever landed on the far side of the moon is a real milestone in space exploration. As we regard planetary geology, then I think the composition of the rocks in the South Pole-Aitken basin has a great interest, because the basin is so deep, 12km deep. It's exposed rocks from much deeper within the moon, then we all ever have been studied before.

READ MORE: USSR Moon Rock Auction in New York City Nets $855,000

Sputnik: I believe that seeds have also been sent as part of an experiment to see if it's possible for living things to grow on the moon. What do you think about this? Any prospects there?

Sputnik: We have known the moon to be inhospitable to life and yet this year scientists have been saying that they've discovered that conditions on the lunar surface could have supported simple life forms around, say, 4 billion years ago. What are the chances that this perception of a lifeless moon could change after this mission?

Ian Crawford: Well, I do think, this mission will probably tell us much more about that. I mean, the moon is, you're right, a very inhospitable place at the moment. The life is impossible on the surface of the moon. Today, because the moon has never had an atmosphere and liquid water is impossible, the radiation environment is very bad. I think, the idea has been that in the distant past, when the moon was young, then it may have had a thin atmosphere, which would be thin by our standards, but perhaps similar to the current atmosphere that Mars has.

READ MORE: Russian Space Agency Chief Wants to 'Check' If Americans Walked on the Moon

Sputnik: You've mentioned the impact crater on the far side of the moon. What could that potentially reveal? What kind of secrets?

Ian Crawford: Well, a deep interior of the moon…. because the impact basins, Aitken basin is 12km deep, then the rocks on the floor of it have been exposed from that depth within the moon, much deeper than any of the other sample sites that we have from the near site. A key geological interest will be to see, where this South Pole-Aitken basin has… the darkest deep of the lunar mantle, which ignites potentially of the… dug deep down into the lunar crust.

Comparing the composition of those, rocks on the floor the South Pole-Aitken basin, where the rocks collected much closer to the surface, on the near side. It does potentially tell us quite a lot of the geological evolution of the moon, and the differentiation of the moon into its mantle and crust.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of Ian Crawford and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.</s>Intangible Frequencies Of The Moon And The Human Mind Every spacial body emanates intangible frequencies that interact with the frequencies of the human body. The moon as such influences the mind - it influences the sub conscious mind which contains several impressions that determine subtle human characteristics, as well as the conscious mind. These impressions on the subconscious mind are a result of causes created over several lifetimes. These impressions are caused over several lifetimes and are stored in the subconscious mind. However, we might not be aware of these impressions but they exist in this latent mind. These are responsible for our thoughts and actions to a large extent. Our thoughts in the conscious mind and the impressions in the subconscious mind also have some subtle frequencies. The subtleness of the frequencies of the moon being more, they are more difficult to be noticed than the frequencies of the thoughts and expressions in the mind.

On a full moon night, the frequencies emanated from the moon are more and the influence on the subconscious mind is greater. This is the perfect explanation for why some people have more thoughts flowing through their mind that go on to determine the actions they commit. The same is true with respect to a new moon day. Darkness emanates negative frequencies of Rajas and Tamas nature. Hence, there is more of negative energy on a new moon day, as the dark side of the moon faces the earth during this time.

Similarly, on a full moon night, the basic Sattva frequencies are emanated. However, the frequencies on a full moon day are more active when there is brightness around than those on a new moon day. Hence, a heightened activity in the mind can be observed on a full moon day. Now, which thoughts become active depends from person to person. It can be the thoughts of the conscious as well as subconscious mind. For some people random thoughts might become active, for others it might be some specific thoughts that gain momentum. For instance, somebody who loves painting might be able to get more creative ideas on this day. When there are some pre dominant personality defects in people, such as anger, hatred, greed etc., they might surface during this time.

The gravitational pull of the moon increases on full moon and new moon days. It is almost three times more than that on other days. Because of the gravitational pull of the moon, the Panchtattva (the five basic elements) get attracted towards the moon. The gaseous particles in these elements will get attracted faster towards the moon. Negative frequencies and energies generally exist in gaseous forms only. All the gaseous elements gain strength and thus negative energy spreads faster. The three times more pressure of the moon causes a three times increase in the effect of the negative energies. Hence, the increased effect of moon on mankind. The gravitational pull of the moon also has effects on the mind. Gravitation, depending on the fundamental vibrational frequency of the subconscious mind, affects different people differently. This is a proven fact that even science has attested. Thus, in the fundamental sense, the moon has effects and will continue to impact the functioning of the subconscious mind and thus, influence behaviour of human beings.

On new moon days, people who want to perform negative activities such as occult rituals get supported by more of negative energies of Rajas and Tamas being predominant in the environment. Since there is excess of negative energy, it is considered inappropriate to perform auspicious activities on these days. So that predominant negative energies do not attack them. Since the moon radiates Raja-Tama energies on these days, there is a rise in the chances of such incidents (running away, anger, murder, suicide, black magic, etc.) more on a new moon day. Since the Tejtattva of the Sun which is the natural purification element, is not available on a new moon day, the negative energies get a sufficient opportunity to cause negative impact.

On a full moon day, the moon does not radiate these Rajas-Tamas frequencies. Therefore, the negative energies do not get such support as on full moon days. However, there are more of negative frequencies on a new moon day, but the frequencies on a full moon day are more active than a new moon day. Thus, the negative energies take advantage of the increased gravitational pull and try to affect. But, the distress caused by these energies on a full moon day is much lesser than on a new moon day.

Can Spirituality Protect From The Effects Of Full Moon And New Moon? The negative effects of a full moon can impact only the body, but it affects the mind too in case of a new moon night. Hence, the effect on a new moon night is more dangerous as it is not much apparent. Those who are spiritual practitioners, they are more equipped with positive energies known as Sattvik Gunas. Hence, they can easily notice when Rajsik and Tamsik changes happen in the environment. But the people who are themselves Rajsik or Tamsik in nature (who are less inclined towards spirituality) are not able to notice the changes. Overall, those inclined towards spiritual practices are able to counter the negative energies better than others. Hence, it is said that they can easily get God's help and protection from the negative energies, such as demons, ghosts, black magic, etc. Probably, that is why we are advised to practice more spiritual activities from two days prior to and two days after the new moon and full moon both. Most Read: The Significance Of The Three Gunas In Hinduism</s>China's mission to the dark side of the moon has successfully entered a stable orbit around our natural satellite.

The 240,000 mile long (385,000km) journey took 110 hours to complete and saw Chang'e-4 enter into an elliptical orbit 80 miles above the surface.

It is expected to land on the dark side of the moon at some point in early January, but the country's secretive space agency has not announced a set date.

Retrorockets on the probe fired on 12 December to stabilise the spacecraft and slow it down.

Chang'e-4 will target the South Pole-Aitken basin's Von Karman crater, the largest in the entire solar system at 15,000 miles (24,000km) across and eight miles deep.

It took off from the Xichang satellite launch centre in Sichuan, south-west China at 6:30 GMT on December 7 atop a Long March-3B rocket.

It is expected to perform a 'soft-landing' and land on the moon after completing its 27 day journey through space.

Exploring the huge divot on the surface of the moon may shed new light on its history and geology by collecting rocks that have never been seen before.

Researchers hope the huge depth of the crater will allow them to study the moon's mantle, the layer underneath the surface, of the moon.

Chang'e-4 has been described as 'hugely ambitious' and heralded as a sign of China's growing intentions to rival the space exploration prowess of the US, Russia and the EU.

To facilitate communication between controllers on Earth and the Chang'e-4 mission, China launched a relay satellite named Queqiao on 20 May and is now stationed in operational orbit about 40,000 miles beyond the moon.

This will be the primary form of communication between Earth and the spacecraft.

The probe and explorer will use Queqiao to get their findings back to China. As the landing is happening on the dark side of the moon it required its own satellite to be able to send information back.

China's latest mission closely follows the touchdown of NASA's InSight spacecraft on Mars on Monday, at a site less than 400 miles (640 kilometres) from the American rover Curiosity, the only other working robot on Mars.

The Chinese plan involves two missions. One places a satellite in orbit around the moon to provide a means of sending information and data back to Earth (left). The other part involves a lander and rover which will work together to explore the surface of the moon (right)
Chang'e 4 successfully enters orbit around the Moon ahead of a historic landing on the far side of the Moon in early 2019.