Just a few hours after the Chang’E 4 spacecraft landed on the dark side of the Moon, it has already sent back a number of photos of the lunar surface.
After the Chang’E 4 spacecraft landed on the far side of the Moon on January 2nd, the onboard Chinese lunar rover immediately began its lunar mission. The six-wheeled rover, called Yutu 2, showed no signs of stopping and, over the weekend, released a number of high-resolution images of the moon.
The images were sent back to Earth via the relay satellite Queqiao, launched ahead of Chang’E 4 last May. The satellite helps the CNSA communicate with the spacecraft situated on the non-Earth-facing side of the Moon. The Chinese lander and rover touched base inside the 115-mile-wide Von Kármán Crater. Each device is equipped with four scientific instruments to navigate and study their surroundings.
Yutu 2 is designed to operate for at least three months on the Moon’s surface. It is the successor of Yutu 1, launched on the near side of the Moon in 2013 as part of the Chang’E 3 lunar mission. Below are some of the images captured by both the Chang-E 4 lander and the Yutu 2 Chinese lunar rover.
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