CNSA · lander active
Chang'e 4
China's Chang'e 4 made the first soft landing on the Moon's far side in 2019 and deployed the long-lived Yutu-2 rover.
- Launch
- 7 December 2018
- Distance from Earth today
- 373,100 km0.002 AU · light: 1.2 s
- Distance from the Sun today
- 148.4 million km0.992 AU
The spacecraft is at Moon.
Position
JPL Horizons has no trajectory for this mission – the map shows the body where the spacecraft is.
Mission timeline
- Launch on a Long March 3B from Xichang
- Enters lunar orbit
- First soft landing on the far side of the Moon; Yutu-2 rover drives off
- Last observed movement of the Yutu-2 rover
Targets: Moon
About the mission
Because the far side of the Moon never faces Earth, a lander there cannot talk to us directly, so China first placed the Queqiao relay satellite beyond the Moon. Chang'e 4 then landed on 3 January 2019 inside Von Kármán crater, within the vast South Pole–Aitken basin, one of the oldest and deepest impact structures in the Solar System. Its Yutu-2 rover studied the layers of the crater floor with ground-penetrating radar and found material that may come from the lunar mantle. Both worked for years, far beyond their planned lifetime: the lander was still conducting science in 2026, while Yutu-2, after more than 1.6 km of driving, has not been seen to move since March 2024.
Landing sites
Texture: Solar System Scope (CC BY 4.0) · names: IAU/USGS Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature
| Body | Site | Date | Coordinates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moon | Statio Tianhe, Von Kármán crater | 3 January 2019 | 45.445° S, 177.599° E |