Spacewatch: China readies for part one of mission to far side of the moon

China is aiming to launch its new mission to the moon on Monday 21 May.

The Chang’e 4 relay satellite will be stationed about 60,000km behind the moon and provide a communications link for a rover that is designed to land and explore the lunar far side, which never faces Earth. The relay satellite has been named Queqiao, meaning Magpie Bridge, a name that comes from Chinese folklore in which a flock of magpies forms a bridge over the Milky Way to allow a separated pair of lovers to unite.

The name is apt because this year China will send the second part of the mission: a lunar lander to deploy a rover on the far side to explore the moon’s Aitken basin. The basin is the largest crater in the solar system and could hold clues about the way the moon formed.

A successful landing will be a first, no country has yet landed on the far side of the moon. Queqiao will also carry a Dutch radio telescope that will test how easy it will be to pick up signals from the early universe before there were any stars.