China’s ambition to soft-land a spacecraft on the far side of the moon later this year faces considerable challenges, but if successful would propel the country’s space program to the forefront of one of the most important areas of lunar exploration, experts say.
China hopes to be the first country to complete such a landing. On Monday, it launched a relay satellite to facilitate communication between controllers on Earth and the upcoming Chang’e 4 mission.
The moon’s far side is also known as the dark side because it faces away from Earth and remains comparatively unknown.
Doing things in space, especially at a far distance from Earth, remains hard.- John M. Logsdon, George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute
Creating the ability to explore the far side
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