China's Chang'e-4 probe resumes work for 17th lunar day

BEIJING -- The lander and rover of the Chang'e-4 probe have resumed work for the 17th lunar day on the far side of the moon after "sleeping" during the extremely cold night.

The lander woke up at 1:24 pm Friday (Beijing time), and the rover awoke at 8:57 pm Thursday. Both 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.

A lunar day equals 14 days on Earth, and a lunar night is the same length. The Chang'e-4 probe, switching to dormant mode during the lunar night due to the lack of solar power, has survived about 470 Earth days on the moon.

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.

Carrying scientific instruments such as panoramic camera, lunar penetrating radar, infrared imaging spectrometer and neutral atom detector, the rover will continue to move northwest to conduct scientific detection.

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.