Chang\u2019e-4 is second spacecraft in Chinese mission to land on far side of the moon<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China\u2019s lunar lander Chang\u2019e-4 has successfully entered orbit around the moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chang\u2019e-4 was launched on 7 December<\/a> atop a Long March-3B rocket from Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in China\u2019s Sichuan province.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n It is the second spacecraft in the China<\/a> National Space Administration\u2019s (CNSA) mission to attempt the first landing on the far side of the moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The spacecraft carries experiments and instruments from a number of countries including Germany, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia and Sweden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chang\u2019e-4 is second spacecraft in Chinese mission to land on far side of the moon China\u2019s lunar lander Chang\u2019e-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… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[117],"class_list":["post-2668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-the-guardian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2669,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668\/revisions\/2669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}