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Chang'e 4 (tʃa:ŋˈə; ) is a robotic spacecraft mission in the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program of the CNSA. China achieved humanity's first soft landing on the far side of the Moon with its touchdown on 3 January 2019. A communication relay satellite, Queqiao, was first launched to a halo orbit near the Earth–Moon L2 point in May 2018. The robotic lander and Yutu-2 () rover were launched on 7 December 2018 and entered lunar orbit on 12 December 2018, before landing on the Moon's far side. The mission is the follow-up to Chang'e 3, the first Chinese landing on the Moon. The spacecraft was originally built as a backup for Chang'e 3 and became available after Chang'e 3 landed successfully in 2013. The configuration of Chang'e 4 was adjusted to meet new scientific and performance objectives. Like its predecessors, the mission is named after Chang'e, the Chinese Moon goddess. In November 2019, Chang’e 4 mission team was awarded Gold Medal by the Royal Aeronautical Society. In October 2020, the mission was awarded the World Space Award by the International Astronautical Federation. Both were the first time for any Chinese mission to receive such awards. The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program is designed to be conducted in four phases of incremental technological advancement: The first is simply reaching lunar orbit, a task completed by Chang'e 1 in 2007 and Chang'e 2 in 2010. The second is landing and roving on the Moon, as Chang'e 3 did in 2013 and Chang'e 4 did in 2019. The third is collecting lunar samples from the near-side and sending them to Earth, a task Chang'e 5 completed in 2020, and Chang'e 6 will attempt in the future. The fourth phase consists of development of a robotic research station near the Moon's south pole. The program aims to facilitate a crewed lunar landing in the 2030s and possibly the building of an outpost near the south pole. The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program has started to incorporate private investment from individuals and enterprises for the first time, a move aimed at accelerating aerospace innovation, cutting production costs, and promoting militarycivilian relationships.

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Yutu-2

Yutu-2 () is the robotic lunar rover component of CNSA's Chang'e 4 mission to the Moon, launched on 7 December 2018 18:23 UTC, it entered lunar orbit on 12 December 2018 before making the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon on 3 January 2019. Yutu-2 is currently operational as the longest-lived lunar rover and the first lunar rover traversing the far side of the Moon. By January 2022, Yutu-2 had travelled a distance of more than along the Moon's surface. The total landing mass is .

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Luna 3

Luna 3, or E-2A No.1 () was a Soviet spacecraft launched in 1959 as part of the Luna programme. It was the first mission to photograph the far side of the Moon and the third Soviet space probe to be sent to the neighborhood of the Moon. Though it returned rather poor pictures, the historic, never-before-seen views of the far side of the Moon caused excitement and interest when they were published around the world, and a tentative Atlas of the Far Side of the Moon was created after image processing improved the pictures.

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