13 January 2019
In 2013, China launched Chang'e 3, the country's first spacecraft to soft-land on the moon. The scientific instruments on its lander are still operating after more than 60 lunar nights in the past five years. "It was a success, but Chang'e 3 was designed according to foreign temperature data," said Zhang He, Executive Director of the Chang'e 4 probe project, from the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST). "Chang'e 4 will measure the temperature differences between the day and night on the moon, helping scientists estimate the properties of the lunar soil," she said.
MORE...

12 January 2019
Leonard David explains in an article on his website the work of NASA's LRO team to identify Chang'e 4's landing site: "NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) imagery has been used to further pinpoint the landing locale of China’s Chang’e-4 farside lander. Looking at the just released Chang’e-4 descent frames to the surface made it easy to find the exact landing spot in a Narrow Angle Camera image produced by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC. That image was taken prior to the Chang’e-4’s touchdown, explains Mark Robinson, the principal investigator of the LROC at Arizona State University in Tempe."
MORE...

14 January 2019
Wu Yanhua, Deputy Head of the China National Space Administration said at a news conference on 14 January that the next step in China's lunar exploration programme, the sample return mission Chang'e 5, will take place around the end of this year.
MORE... 

China's plans for follow-up lunar exploration missions

14 January 2019
There is both optimism and a need for the United States to resume cooperation with China in space exploration, veteran astronaut and former NASA administrator Charles Bolden said days after the Chinese spacecraft Chang'e 4 made a historic soft-landing on the far side of the Moon. "China should feel very proud of having accomplished this. Anytime you can do something that has not been done before, it's a reason for excitement and celebration," he said. Congressional prohibitions on space cooperation with China - as stipulated by the 2011 Wolf Amendment to NASA appropriations bills - is a "significant legal constraint" and "hindrance" that should be relaxed or reversed, Bolden stressed. "I'm incredibly optimistic. I just think cooler heads will prevail," Bolden said in an exclusive interview.
MORE...