China is plans for lunar exploration are proceeding rapidly and in 2018, China will launch a pair of missions known collectively as Chang’e 4. These are 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.

(Comment: China’s lunar exploration programme started in 2007 with Chang’e 1, a simple lunar orbiter. In 2010, Chang’e 2 also went into lunar orbit before setting off for a trek across the solar system that culminated in a flyby of asteroid Toutatis in 2012. In 2013 Chang’e 3, deploying the Jade Rabbit rover, made headlines for the first soft landing on the moon since 1976.)