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The Moon seen from the Forbidden City in Beijing, November 14, 2016 (illustration image). NICOLAS ASFOURI / AFP

This Thursday, January 3, 2019, the Chinese have succeeded in the moon landing of the exploration module "Chang'e-4", on the far side of the Moon. The operation, complex, is a world first; it reinforces Beijing's space ambitions.

The Chang'e-4 exploration module landed safely at 10:26 am Beijing time (2h26 UT), the China New News Agency reported. The spacecraft, which left Earth on December 8, 2018, sent a photo of the lunar surface to the Queqiao satellite, orbiting the moon, CCTV public television said. Unlike the face of the Moon closest to the Earth, which is still facing our planet and which had been explored by Appolo missions, no probe or exploration module had ever touched the ground before. 'other side. The hidden face is mountainous and rugged, dotted with craters, while the visible face offers many flat surfaces to land.

Beijing had been preparing for years for this particularly difficult operation from a technological point of view. One of the major challenges was to be able to communicate with the lunar robot: the hidden face is always oriented in the opposite direction to the Earth, there is no direct "line of sight" to transmit the signals, except to install a relay. China had launched in May 2018 a satellite called Queqiao ("The bridge of the magpie"), positioned in lunar orbit to relay orders and data exchanged between the Earth and the module.

Lunar night

During the lunar night - which lasts 14 days on land - temperatures drop to -173 ° C. During the day - also equivalent to 14 terrestrial days - they can reach 127 ° C. And, to compound the difficulty, the Chang'e-4 was sent to a region of the South Pole of the Moon, the Aitken Basin, whose terrain is particularly complex and steep. The equipment must, in particular, conduct studies on radio low frequencies, mineral resources and the cultivation of tomatoes and other plants.

"Heavenly Palace"

This is the second time that China has sent a machine to explore the lunar surface after the Yutu small motorized robot ("Jade Bunny") in 2013. It remained active for 31 months. Beijing is already planning to launch a Chang'e-5 next year to collect samples and bring them back to Earth. China invests billions in its space program, led by the military. It places satellites in orbit, on its behalf (earth observation, telecommunications, Beidou geolocation system) or for other countries. She also hopes to send a robot to Mars and humans on the Moon soon.

Beijing unveiled in November a replica of its first major space station ("Heaven Palace") which should be operational around 2022 and succeed the ISS, the International Space Station. The ISS associates the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada, but his retirement is scheduled for 2024.

( with AFP )