Chinese module to study moon's far side

Liu Jizhong, director of China National Space Administration's Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center, said that Chang'e 4 has been engineered to fit the complex landscape and sophisticated communication conditions on the far side of the moon.

In addition to Chinese scientific equipment, the Chang'e 4 mission also involves scientific apparatus developed by the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and Saudi Arabia.

In May, China launched a relay satellite tasked with transmitting signals between Chang'e 4 and ground control.

China started sending robotic probes to the moon in 2007 and has carried out several lunar missions since then. It landed the Chang'e 3 probe, which carried the first Chinese lunar rover, on the moon in December 2013. The Chang'e 3 mission marked first soft-landing by a spacecraft on the moon in nearly four decades.

The next step in China's lunar exploration agenda, the Chang'e 5 mission, is scheduled for 2019 and will put a rover on the lunar surface to take samples and then bring them back to Earth.