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Overview of the Chang’e-4 Mission: Opening the Frontier of Scientific Exploration of the Lunar Far Side

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Abstract

China’s Chang’e-4 (CE-4) mission is the first human lander/rover mission on the far side of the Moon. Its probe is composed of a lander, rover, and the Queqiao relay satellite. Queqiao was successfully launched on May 21, 2018, and entered the halo orbit of the L2 point on June 14, becoming the first satellite connecting the Earth and the Moon’s far side. The lander carrying Yutu-2 was successfully launched on December 8, 2018, and landed in the Von Kármán crater (45.5° S, 177.6° E) at 10:26 (UTC+8) on January 3, 2019. The CE-4 probe carried nine science instruments. Four instruments are on the lander: a landing camera (LCAM), a terrain camera (TCAM), a low-frequency radio spectrometer (LFRS), and a lunar lander neutrons and dosimetry (LND) provided by Germany. Four instruments are on the rover: a panoramic camera (PCAM), a visible and near-infrared imaging spectrometer (VNIS), a lunar penetrating radar (LPR), and an advanced small analyzer for neutrals (ASAN) provided by Sweden. The instrument on the relay satellite is the Netherlands-China Low-Frequency Explorer (NCLE). The scientific objectives of the CE-4 mission include (1) performing low-frequency radio-astronomical observations; (2) investigating the geomorphology, mineral compositions and shallow subsurface structure of the landing and roving sites; and (3) detecting the Earth-Moon space environment at the lunar far side. As of February 1, 2020, CE-4 has completed 14 lunar days of scientific exploration after one year of operation. The components, fight, scientific objectives and investigation of CE-4 are introduced in this paper. We also describe the accessibility of the initial archived science data and their preliminary analysis results.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Chang’E-4 mission of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.41671458). We thank the team members of the Ground Research and Application System (GRAS), who have contributed to data receiving, preprocessing, management and release.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Lunar and Deep Space Exploration, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Chunlai Li, Wei Zuo, Weibin Wen, Xingguo Zeng, Xingye Gao, Yuxuan Liu, Qiang Fu, Zhoubin Zhang, Yan Su, Xin Ren, Fang Wang, Jianjun Liu, Wei Yan, Xu Tan, Dawei Liu, Bin Liu, Hongbo Zhang & Ziyuan Ouyang

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Chunlai Li, Wei Zuo, Yan Su & Jianjun Liu

  3. Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang, 550081, China

    Ziyuan Ouyang

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Contributions

C.L.L, W.Z., and W.W.B. designed the work, performed data analysis, and wrote the manuscript. X.G.Z., X.Y.G, Y.X.L., Q.F., Y.S., X.R., F.W., D.W.L., B.L., and Z.Y. OY processed and analyzed the payload data. Z.B.Z., J.J.L., W.Y., X.T., and H.B.Z. contributed to data receiving, data preprocessing, data management, and instrument operations.

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Correspondence to Wei Zuo.

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Li, C., Zuo, W., Wen, W. et al. Overview of the Chang’e-4 Mission: Opening the Frontier of Scientific Exploration of the Lunar Far Side. Space Sci Rev 217, 35 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-021-00793-z

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