[LINK] On the latest Chang'e lunar missions of China

[rfmcdonald]

The Planetary Society's Emily Lakdawalla wrote about China's exciting new plans for Moon exploration.

An article about Chang'e 4 appeared on the website of China Daily today, and it contains a small amount of news about China's present and future lunar exploration plans. Thanks to @sinodefence on Twitter for the link and to scientist Quanzhi Ye for some help with translating the news.

It had already been reported that China planned to send Chang'e 4 (the backup model of the Chang'e 3 lander) to the lunar farside. The intent to land on the farside was announced on the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program website on December 2. The China Daily News article mentions launch dates, and they're earlier than previously discussed. A communications relay satellite (based on the design of Chang'e 2) will be launched in June of 2018, and will take up a position at the Moon-Earth L2 point, where it will be able to see both the landing site and Earth. The lander will be launched at the end of 2018. There is still no official word on what the lander's scientific payload will be, or even if it will carry another rover. Interestingly, the article mentions some kind of public involvement in the payload development. China already has experience navigating lunar orbiters to the L2 point. [. . .]

Guokr -- a Chinese blog site that often hosts science-related content -- posted a blog with a little more information about the planned Chang'e 4 mission. This is not an official source! The Guokr blog mentions the south pole-Aitken basin as a possible landing site.[. . .]

The China Daily News article also talks about "successful completion" of the Chang'e 3 mission. This does not mean the end of the mission, but rather an official statement that Chang'e 3 has been successful. Monthly contact with Chang'e 3 continues, although it's not clear if it is still doing scientific observations. A review paper about Chang'e 3 recently appeared in the literature, which helped lunar mapper Phil Stooke update his maps of the Chang'e 3 landing site, likely for the final time. Here's an overview, including the lovely names for the mini-craters observed by the lander during its descent:

More, including links and maps and photos, at the site.