China's mission to the farside of the Moon

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44198673

China has launched a relay satellite to prepare for a lunar rover mission planned for later in the year.
...

In addition to its onboard communications equipment, Queqiao will also carry two scientific instruments and will deploy two microsatellites once it arrives at the Moon.

The forthcoming Chang'e 4 mission will explore the Moon's South Pole-Aitken Basin with a payload of scientific instruments

Capt'n Midnight

Nearly there




https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/06/03/chinese-data-relay-satellite-taking-up-post-over-far-side-of-the-moon/

The relay craft is named Queqiao, which means “magpie bridge” and comes from a Chinese folk tale in which a flock of birds form a bridge across the galaxy to reunite two lovers.

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The far side of the moon is a “radio quiet” zone free of such interference, and the Netherlands-China Low-Frequency Explorer, or NCLE, aboard the Queqiao spacecraft will demonstrate the potential of sending future radio astronomy missions to such an observation post.

NIMAN

Isn't the far side of the moon full of massive alien bases?

Read it somewhere!!!

Reati

NIMAN wrote: »

Isn't the far side of the moon full of massive alien bases?

Read it somewhere!!!

Over on conspiracy board....

tricky D

NIMAN wrote: »

Isn't the far side of the moon full of massive alien bases?

Read it somewhere!!!

Nazi bases as featured in the documentary Iron Sky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py_IndUbcxc

Conservatory

When is it landing?
Will it be televised?

jumpjack

The just launched satellite is just a transponder to allow Earth communication from /to a region of Moon never visible from Earth. The satellite is orbiting around a "virtual object" called "Lagrange point 2" or "L2", a place where equations describing gravity field say that it's like if a real body was there, but it isn't.
Lander Chang'e 4 will be launched "late 2018".
BTW, just read about previous lander, Chang'e3, still communicating with Earth, despite failure of its rover.

Capt'n Midnight

China's Yutu rover spots 'mysterious hut' on far side of the Moon It's now on month 36.

Yutu 2 landed on the Moon in January 2019 and has been active ever since. It even holds the record for length of lunar operations, having passed 1,000 days of exploring in late September. At that time Chinese media reported that the rover had travelled 840m from its landing place in the Von Karman Crater and sent home 3.6 terabytes of data.

Link to page in Chinese https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/dpKkjWHk9tay3JERnrfuUw with maps and pictures also in Chinese. Google translate :

After measurement, the "mysterious hut" on the horizon is about 80 meters away from the current location, and it is expected to reach the destination after two to three months of trekking. We have no way of knowing what the end of the universe is, but what is the end of the sky is still worth looking forward to in the coming months. Interested readers can wait patiently and follow up...

Warning Google translate also said this "Will be trapped in a Jedi where the mountains and rivers are exhausted."

JupiterKid

I was about to post up about this new "mysterious object" on the far side of the Moon imaged by Yutu 2 but the good Captain got there before me. 😎

Its shape is really intriguing but I would imagine it's a very angular large boulder on the plain and will be seen to be as such when Yutu 2 moves closer. Are there any high-res images of the area from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter?

Otherwise, could it be a 2001 Space Odyssey Monolith - or an artefact of a now long since extinct spacefaring civilisation? 😁

Here's a zoomed-in version...

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