Chinese Chang'e 4 Lunar Landing

Chang'e 4 is a robotic spacecraft mission, part of the second phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. It achieved the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon, on 3 January 2019. A communication relay satellite, Queqiao, was first launched to a halo orbit near the Earth-Moon L2 point in May 2018. The robotic lander and Yutu 2 rover were launched on 7 December 2018 and entered lunar orbit on 12 December 2018, before landing on the Moon's far side. The mission is the follow-up to Chang'e 3, the first Chinese landing on the Moon. The spacecraft was originally built as a backup for Chang'e 3 and became available after Chang'e 3 landed successfully in 2013. The configuration of Chang'e 4 was adjusted to meet new scientific and performance objectives. Like its predecessors, the mission is named after Chang'e, the Chinese Moon goddess.

The landing site is within a crater called Von Kármán (180 km or 110 mi diameter) in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the Moon that was still unexplored by landers. The site has symbolic as well as scientific value. Theodore von Kármán was the PhD advisor of Qian Xuesen, the founder of the Chinese space program.

The landing craft touched down at 02:26 UTC on 3 January 2019, becoming the first spacecraft to land on the far side of the Moon.

The selenographic coordinates of the landing site are 177.5991°E, 45.4446°S, at an elevation of -5935 m.

The Yutu-2 rover was deployed about 12 hours after the landing.