China's Chang'e-4 probe resumes work for 14th lunar day
Xinhua
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BEIJING, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) - The lander and rover of the Chang'e-4 probe have resumed work for the 14th lunar day on the far side of the moon after "sleeping" during the extremely cold night.

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Both the lander and the rover are in normal working order, according to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration.

The Chang'e-4 probe, launched on Dec. 8, 2018, made the first-ever soft landing on the Von Karman Crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon on Jan. 3, 2019.

The rover Yutu-2, or Jade Rabbit-2, has worked much longer than its three-month design life, becoming the longest-working lunar rover on the moon.

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A lunar day equals 14 days on Earth, and a lunar night is the same length. The Chang'e-4 probe switched to dormant mode during the lunar night due to the lack of solar power.

The scientific tasks of the Chang'e-4 mission include conducting low-frequency radio astronomical observation, surveying the terrain and landforms, detecting the mineral composition and shallow lunar surface structure and measuring neutron radiation and neutral atoms.

The Chang'e-4 mission embodies China's hope to combine wisdom in space exploration with four payloads developed by the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Saudi Arabia.

China plans to launch the Chang'e-5 probe in 2020 to bring lunar samples back to Earth.

The Chang'e-5 probe includes a lander, an orbiter, an ascender and a returner. The key tasks of the mission will be lunar sample collection, takeoff from the moon, rendezvous and docking on lunar obit and high-speed reentry into Earth' atmosphere.