China wants to send a new spacecraft to the moon and what’s so special about this mission is that it will attempt to be the first country to perform a landing on the dark side. According to reports, the operation will take place in 2020 and the Chang’e 4 spacecraft will be the one to deliver the rover to our nearest celestial neighbor.
As you probably know, the dark side or far side of the moon has been observed by probes multiple times already, but never has any country attempted a landing. China’s planned mission will commence by 2020 with the Chang’e 4 spacecraft first orbiting the moon before sending out the rover. The probe was originally designed as a backup to Chang’e 3 that was successfully deployed last year.
And it also managed to deploy the jade rabbit lunar rover which is still functioning on the surface. CNN is reporting that Wu Weiren who’s the chief engineer for China’s Lunar Exploration Program revealed the country’s plans to CCTV which is a state-run broadcaster.
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He went on to say that the landing site is yet to be finalized and it will most likely be a difficult one that’s technically challenging. Chang’e 3 marks the end of China’s second phase of the Lunar Exploration Program and it also earned the country the glory of being the third nation to successfully land on the moon’s surface. The third phase will commence in 2017 with the launch of the Chang’e 5 and speculation is that the country has a Chang’e 6 mission planned as well.
The far side of the moon can never be seen from the Earth and it filled with impact craters which is what makes landing a probe there extremely difficult. It’s going to be a long wait for China’s mission to commence, but you could start exploring the dark side already through Google Earth’s Moon view.