Chinese spacecraft makes first landing on 'dark side of the moon'

Area faces away from Earth and is relatively unexplored

BEIJING — A Chinese spacecraft on Thursday made the first-ever landing on the far side of the moon, state media said.

The lunar explorer Chang’e 4 touched down at 10:26 a.m., China Central Television said in a brief announcement at the top of its noon news broadcast.

The far side of the moon faces away from Earth and is relatively unexplored. It is also known as the dark side of the moon.

The pioneering landing demonstrates China’s growing ambitions as a space power. In 2013, Chang-e 3 was the first spacecraft to land on the moon since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 in 1976.

The mission of Chang-e 4, which is carrying a rover, includes carrying out low-frequency radio astronomical observations and probing the structure and mineral composition of the terrain.

The Long March 3B rocket carrying Chang-e 4 blasted off on December 8 from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southern China.

In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, the Chang’e 4 lunar probe launches from the the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China’s Sichuan Province, Saturday, Dec. 8, 2018. China launched a ground-breaking mission to soft-land a spacecraft on the largely unexplored far side of the moon, demonstrating its growing ambitions as a space power to rival Russia, the European Union and U.S. (Jiang Hongjing/Xinhua via AP)

In May, a relay satellite “Queqiao,” or “Magpie Bridge,” named after an ancient Chinese folk tale, was launched to provide communications support between Chang-e 4 and Earth.

China plans to send its Chang-e 5 probe to the moon next year and have it return to Earth with samples — the first time that will have been done since 1976.