China launched a groundbreaking mission Saturday to 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 the US. 

A Long March 3B rocket carrying a lunar probe blasted off at 2:23 am from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province in southwestern China, the official Xinhua News Agency said. 

With its Chang'e 4 mission, China hopes to be the first country to make a soft landing, which is a landing of a spacecraft during which no serious damage is incurred. The moon's far side is also known as the dark side because it faces away from Earth and remains comparatively unknown. It has a different composition than sites on the near side, where previous missions have landed. 

If successful, the mission would propel the Chinese space program to a leading position in one of the most important areas of lunar exploration. 

China landed its Yutu, or “Jade Rabbit,” rover on the moon five years ago and plans to send its Chang'e 5 probe there next year and have it return to Earth with samples — the first time that will have been done since 1976. A crewed lunar mission is also under consideration.
Chang'e 4 is also a lander-rover combination and will explore both above and below the lunar surface after arriving at the South Pole-Aitken basin's Von Karman crater following a 27-day journey. 

It will also perform radio-astronomical studies that, because the far side always faces away from Earth, will be “free from interference from our planet's ionosphere, human-made radio frequencies and auroral radiation noise,'' space industry expert Leonard David wrote on the website Space.com. 

It may also carry plant seeds and silkworm eggs, according to Xinhua. 

Voice of America

BDST: 0915 HRS, DEC 8, 2018
SI