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		</div><p>China has launched a groundbreaking mission to land a spacecraft on the largely unexplored far side of the moon, demonstrating its growing ambitions as a space power to rival Russia, the EU and the US.</p>
<p>A Long March 3B rocket carrying a lunar probe blasted off at 2.23am local time from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in Sichuan Province in south-western China, the official Xinhua News Agency said.</p>
<p>With its Chang’e 4 mission, China hopes to be the first country to make a soft landing, which is a landing of a spacecraft during which no serious damage is incurred.</p>
<p>The moon’s far side is also known as the dark side because it faces away from Earth and remains comparatively unknown.</p>
<p>It has a different composition than sites on the near side, where previous missions have landed.</p>
<p>If successful, the mission would propel the Chinese space programme to a leading position in one of the most important areas of lunar exploration.</p>
<p>China landed its Yutu, or Jade Rabbit, rover on the moon five years ago and plans to send its Chang’e 5 probe there next year and have it return to Earth with samples – the first time that will have been done since 1976.</p>
<p>A crewed lunar mission is also under consideration.</p>
<p>Chang’e 4 is also a lander-rover combination and will explore both above and below the lunar surface after arriving at the South Pole-Aitken basin’s Von Karman crater following a 27-day journey.</p>
<p>It will also perform radio-astronomical studies that, because the far side always faces away from Earth, will be “free from interference from our planet’s ionosphere, human-made radio frequencies and auroral radiation noise”, space industry expert Leonard David wrote on the website Space.com.</p>
<p>It may also carry plant seeds and silkworm eggs, according to Xinhua.</p>
<p>Chang’e is the goddess of the moon in Chinese mythology.</p>
<p>China conducted its first crewed space mission in 2003, making it only the third country after Russia and the US to do so.</p>
<p>It has put two space stations into orbit, one of which is still operating as a precursor to a more than 60-ton station that is due to come online in 2022.</p>
<p>The launch of a Mars rover is planned for the mid-2020s.</p>
<p>To facilitate communication between controllers on Earth and the Chang’e 4 mission, China in May launched a relay satellite named Queqiao, or Magpie Bridge, after an ancient Chinese folk tale.</p>
<p>China’s space programme has benefited from co-operation with Russia and European nations, although it was excluded from the 420-ton International Space Station, mainly due to US legislation barring such co-operation amid concerns over its strong military connections.</p>
<p>Its programme also suffered a rare setback last year with the failed launch of its Long March 5 rocket.</p>
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