[Chinese scientists hailed the landing of the Chang’e-4 probe as evidence of the country’s growing stature in space exploration. “It is human nature to explore the unknown world,” Wu Weiren, chief designer of the lunar mission for the China National Space Administration, said in an interview on the state television network, CCTV. “And it is what our generation and the next generation are supposed to do.”]
By
Steven Lee Myers
 |
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The
launch of the Chang’e 4 lunar probe in December. It has reached the far side of
the
moon, but some Chinese question whether the money was well spent.
Credit
Jiang Hongjing/Xinhua, via Associated Press
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BEIJING
— Hours after a space probe
from China made humanity’s first landing on the far side of the moon, sending
images of its surroundings back to Earth, the spacecraft deployed a rover on
Thursday to take still more photographs and scan the surface of terrain never
before traversed.
The rover, weighing 300 pounds, rolled off a
ramp on the lander at 10:22 p.m. Beijing time, laying deep tracks in the moon’s
soft soil, its solar panels spread like wings, according to a photograph
released to state media. The rover is now programmed to roam across a barren
vista toward a distinct crater.
Chinese scientists hailed the landing of the
Chang’e-4 probe as evidence of the country’s growing stature in space
exploration. “It is human nature to explore the unknown world,” Wu Weiren,
chief designer of the lunar mission for the China National Space
Administration, said in an interview on the state television network, CCTV.
“And it is what our generation and the next generation are supposed to do.”
Compared with previous missions, however, the
reaction to Thursday’s milestones seemed strikingly restrained, both in the
country’s state-run news outlets and on social media. On China’s most-watched
TV news program early Thursday evening, the landing — declared a success by
officials at mission control — was not even one of the four top stories.
The doodle of China’s biggest search engine,
Baidu, paid subtle homage to the lander and its rover, but the news was
relegated to the fifth item on CCTV’s 7 p.m. news program. It followed three
reports on the doings of the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, and an item on a new
government zone being developed outside Beijing. In interviews, several people
said they had paid little attention to the moon landing.
[Why China’s moon landing was hailed a ‘new
chapter in humanity’s exploration of the moon.’]
The muted reaction was a sign that the
novelty of the country’s space missions has faded. But the coverage also
appeared to reflect political and economic anxieties at a time when Mr. Xi’s
government is trying to negotiate a truce in the trade war with the United
States and respond to worrisome cracks in the economy.
A woman in a cafe in Beijing, Liu Ying,
expressed pride in the space program but said she had not followed the landing
closely. She then expressed wonder about the costs. “The economy is bad,” she
said. “Is it really a good thing for the country to spend recklessly?”
The government does not disclose how much it
spends on its space programs, but it has made it clear that this launch was
part of an ambitious goal to establish China as one of the world’s space powers, rivaling the United States. Officials have said the country hopes to
establish a lunar base that could provide natural resources for the Earth but
also serve as a launching pad for further exploration.
The first of three photographs sent by
Chang’e-4 appeared a little over an hour after the spacecraft touched down as
planned at 10:26 a.m., Beijing time, in the middle of a crater not far from the
moon’s south pole. It showed a barren, undulating vista pocked by a smaller
crater, as did another picture sent 12 hours later as the rover began its
journey.
Contrary to the enduring but mistaken notion that the moon has a “dark side” — you can blame Pink Floyd for that, at least
in part — the photographs showed the landscape bathed in an orange hue, casting
the sharp shadows from the lander and the rover. The other two, in black and
white, showed the lander descending.
The spacecraft was the first to land intact
on the side of the moon that perpetually faces away from Earth. A Soviet
satellite took the first photographs of the far side in 1959, and the Apollo
missions circled above it between 1968 and 1972, but the difficulty of
communicating with earthbound scientists had always made the idea of landing
there more complex, if not necessarily prohibitive.
Dr. Wu, in his televised remarks, said the
landing had been a “great kickoff” for future lunar missions, including ones
intended to land astronauts — something only the United States has
accomplished, sending 12 men to the moon. Under the current schedule, China
would send the first astronaut by 2030.
“We are building China into a space giant,”
he said.
To overcome the challenge of communicating
from the moon’s far side, China had previously launched a satellite called
Queqiao, or Magpie Bridge. It now orbits beyond the moon to act as a relay for
transmissions to and from the mission control center on the northwestern
outskirts of Beijing.
China’s first lunar probe, known as
Chang’e-3, landed on the near side of the moon in 2013. It also released a
rover, but it was hindered by terrain and communication problems. After a month
it came to a halt, and broadcast only intermittently following that.
Yu Guobin, a spokesman for the Chang’e-4
program, said in televised remarks that the detachment of the rover was the
“more important historical moment.”
NASA’s administrator, Jim Bridenstine,
congratulated his Chinese counterparts for the successful landing. In a message
on Twitter, he called the mission “a first for humanity and an impressive
accomplishment!” Twitter is banned inside China’s Great Firewall, but his
remark was widely quoted nonetheless.
Zoe Mou and Claire Fu contributed research.
Follow Steven Lee Myers on Twitter: @stevenleemyers.
