The lander and the rover of the Chang'e-4 probe have been switched to dormant mode for the lunar night after working stably for the 27th lunar day, according to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration.

The lander was switched to dormant mode at 1:30 p.m. Friday (Beijing Time) as scheduled, and the rover, Yutu-2 (Jade Rabbit-2), at 1:48 a.m. Friday, said the center.

The Chang'e-4 probe, which was switched to dormant mode during the lunar night due to the lack of solar power, had been on the far side of the moon for 778 Earth days as of Saturday, and the rover has traveled 652.62 meters. A lunar day and night each equal 14 days on Earth.

The rover is in good condition, and all scientific payloads are working normally, said the center.

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 has far exceeded its three-month design lifespan, becoming the longest-working lunar rover on the moon.

China's space tracking ship Yuanwang-3 departs for new monitoring missions
NANJING, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) - China's space tracking ship Yuanwang-3 on Saturday set sail for the Pacific Ocean from a port in east China's Jiangsu Province for upcoming maritime monitoring missions.

It is the ship's first voyage this year.

Commissioned on May 18, 1995, Yuanwang-3 is a second-generation Chinese space tracking ship. It has undertaken more than 90 maritime tracking and monitoring tasks for spacecraft, including the Shenzhou spaceships, Chang'e lunar probes and BeiDou satellites.

Source: Xinhua News Agency

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