Posted on 05/21/2018 12:51:32 PM PDT by Simon Green
China has launched a relay satellite to prepare for a lunar rover mission planned for later in the year.
The Queqiao spacecraft will establish a communications link between Earth and the landing mission, which looks set to launch in the next six months.
The satellite was launched at 22:28 BST on Sunday (05:28 local time) from Xichang launch centre in the country's south-west.
It will settle in an orbit about 455,000 km (282,555 miles) from Earth.
This orbit will also take it more than 60,000 km from the lunar farside, where China will aim to put down with a lander and rover - a mission called Chang'e 4.
Queqiao should be well-positioned to provide near-continuous contact between China's robotic assets on the lunar farside and a ground station on Earth.
"The launch is a key step for China to realise its goal of being the first country to send a probe to soft-land on and rove the far side of the moon," the state news service Xinhua quoted Zhang Lihua, the satellite project's manager, as saying.
In addition to its onboard communications equipment, Queqiao will also carry two scientific instruments and will deploy two microsatellites once it arrives at the Moon.
The forthcoming Chang'e 4 mission will explore the Moon's South Pole-Aitken Basin with a payload of scientific instruments. It is a key step in China's long-term plan to further its ambitions as a major space power.
China previously landed a robotic lander and rover, collectively known as Chang'e 3, on the Moon in December 2014. The rover continued to transmit data until March 2015.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
They realize, don’t they, that we were already there almost 50 years ago....
Ping.
My bet is the rover will veer into a crater and get totaled.
How many more years until we're able to go back?
At one point the Roman Republic could build wonders...
“Beijing, we have a problem.”
“They realize, don’t they, that we were already there almost 50 years ago....”
What they realize is that we’re not there now.
And the Spanish had been in North America for a century when the English showed up....
We wasted 50 years.
"The launch is a key step for China to realise its goal of being the first country to send a probe to soft-land on and rove the far side of the moon," the state news service Xinhua quoted Zhang Lihua, the satellite project's manager
More research is better than less research, more competition is better than less competition. The next time humans set foot on the Moon, though, it won't be a nation-state sending them -- but they'll launch from US territory. Thanks Simon Green, and a ping to my old version of the APoD list and some other lucky people. :^)
They chose the Dark Side of the Moon so that if they crash, nobody would see it......................
Pretty sad when one thinks of it that way. We can only blame ourselves for what China is today and not advancing on the landing on the Moon.
Apollo landing sites from various lunar orbiters of more recent date:
http://www.google.com/search?q=lunar+orbit+images+of+apollo+landing+sites
Beat ‘em by half a century!
heh... I think they're going to investigate the obelisks the Soviets photographed back there in 1959.
50 years ago, our money bought products made by American workers, who became tax payers that paid into our space program.
Now, thanks to these stupid free trade deals, our money buys products built by Chinese workers, which become tax payers paying into their space program.
Who still thinks this was a good idea?
Either that, or they really, really like Pink Floyd................
In my day, a “Moon Landing” meant a MANNED moon landing.
Didn’t Amazon achieve its ‘Moon Landing’ a few years ago - delivering a package as a promotional stunt??
Maybe the band they’re in started playing different tunes.
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