This time next year, there may be a new world leader in lunar exploration. If all goes according to plan, China will have done something no other space-faring superpower has been able to do: land on the far side of the moon. China is rocketing ahead with its plans for lunar exploration. In 2018, they will launch a pair of missions known collectively as Chang’e 4. It is the fourth mission in a series named after the Chinese moon goddess.
The first component of Chang’e 4 is scheduled to lift off in June. It will be a relay satellite stationed some 60,000km behind the moon and will provide a communications link between Earth and the lunar far side. Once this link is established, it will allow China to send the second part of the mission: a lander to the far side’s surface.
Landing on the far side of the moon is something no one has tried before. “The Chinese are pushing back the frontier with such a technically challenging mission,” says Brian Harvey, space analyst and author of China in Space: The Great Leap Forward. Source
Boeing Jet With 62 Aboard Missing After Takeoff From Jakarta A Boeing Co. jet with 62 people aboard is missing after losing contact with Indonesia’s aviation authorities shortly after takeoff from Jakarta. Sriwijaya Air Flight SJ182 was scheduled to depart from the nation’s capital to Pontianak on the island of Borneo at 1:40 p.m. local time, according to FlightRadar24 data, which tracked the plane plunging from 10,900 feet in altitude to 250 feet before it dropped off of the radar. The 26-year-old 737-500 aircraft is a much older model than the 737 Max that was grounded for 20 months in 2019 after two fatal crashes, including a Lion Air disaster that killed 189 people in 2018. Indonesian authorities said they have sent a search vessel from Jakarta to the plane’s last known location in the Java Sea. First responders were also deployed to the site to aid potential survivors, local TV reported. Flight SJ182 had 56 passengers on board, including seven children and three infants, alo
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