The South Pole-Aitken basin on the Moon Image: NASA/GSFC/University of Arizona

Unfortunately, Chang’e-4 won’t be returning anything to Earth, so it probably won’t be able to tell us the exact age of the basin. But it should learn a few interesting tidbits. The Chang’e-4 rover will be carrying ground-penetrating radar to figure out what the structure of the Moon is like underneath the surface of the basin, which could tell us more about how this area formed. It will also have an instrument designed to figure out what the surface is made of in this region. And it’s carrying a Swedish instrument designed to figure out how particles streaming from the Sun interact with the lunar rocks.

Meanwhile, the lander, which is tasked with carrying the rover to the Moon’s surface, will also be doing science from its landing spot, taking advantage of its location on the Moon. Since these vehicles will be on the Moon’s far side, they’ll be shielded from much of the electromagnetic interference from Earth and don’t have to deal with our planet’s atmosphere. The lander will be studying the space environment and the Universe in low frequencies — something we can’t do from our planet.

“CHANG’E-4 IS A FIRST STEP, AND I’M SURE IT WILL RAISE MORE QUESTIONS THAN IT ANSWERS”

And of course, both the lander and the rover will carry cameras to take detailed images of the lunar surface, just as Chang’e-4’s predecessor, Chang’e-3, did. Much of the Chang’e-4 design is modeled after Chang’e-3, which landed on the nearside of the Moon and told scientists a great deal about an area known as the Imbrium basin. Hopefully, Chang’e-4’s rover will move ****her than the rover on Chang’e-3, called Yutu, which stopped being able to travel after about a month.

While it’s definitely unique, Chang’e-4 is just one step in the ladder of China’s decade-long Chang’e mission plan (Chang’e is a goddess of the Moon in Chinese mythology). Following this mission, China plans to launch another robotic mission to the Moon next year called Chang’e-5, which is designed to return samples from the nearside of the Moon. If successful, it’ll be the first time lunar material has been brought back to Earth since 1976. Beyond that, Neal thinks that a sample return from the far side of the Moon is on the horizon. “Chang’e-4 is a first step, and I’m sure it will raise more questions than it answers,” says Neal. “But showing the capability is there to land on the far side and rove, that tells us what’s the next step, and, as I say, robotic sample return would be the logical next step.”


A rendering of the Chang’e-4 rover Image: Chinese Academy of Sciences

In the more distant future, it’s possible that China hopes to put people on the Moon, though it hasn’t been open about those plans. Jones says that it looks like China is working toward crewed flight, by developing a new huge launch vehicle and concepts for a rocket that can carry people. “There’s no officially government-approved plan to put Chinese astronauts on the moon, however you can see that they are working on the various components that you need,” he says.

Any human missions are still years away, and for now China is focused on Chang’e-4. But as is the case with many of China’s missions, the details surrounding this flight have been hard to come by. We know that the mission is set to launch on top of one of China’s Long March 3B rockets from the country’s Xichang Satellite Launch Center. And thanks to air closure notices, takeoff time is estimated to occur around 1:30PM ET on Friday, December 7th. China may only announce that the mission was a success after the spacecraft is on its way to the Moon, though Jones says we might hear earlier than that from other sources.

“It might be that the first indication we have of launch is that some poor soul near Xichang launch center is woken up thinking there’s an earthquake and complaining about it on social media.” Jones says.

If Chang’e-4 does make it to space, it will spend less than a month traveling to the Moon, likely touching down sometime in the first week of January. If that happens, China will have officially moved into its own elite group, as the only country to visit the side of the Moon we cannot see from Earth.
I hope they have the wherewithal to play some Floyd during the mission.