On December 7, 2018 China made history by becoming the first to having a mission that would allow them to travel to the far side of the moon.

A robotic spacecraft, The Change 4, was launched Friday December 7, 2018 at 1;23 p.m. (2:23 a.m. in China, on Saturday, Dec. 8) in attempt to get to the Far Side or “Dark Side” of the moon. The probe launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the southwestern province of Sichuan. The goal was to get the Change 4 to carry both a lander and a lunar rover and get them to touch down on the moons surface. The South Pole-Aitken basin , the moons largest and oldest crater, is the landing area for which Change 4 is suppose to land.

“This crater has the potential to tell us something about the creation of the Earth and moon system — how the moon formed, as well as how the early solar system evolved,” David Paige said, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Understanding exactly when this basin formed and how it relates to other lunar impact basins is key.”

Just last Wednesday night,  January 2, 2019, The Change 4 touched on the floor of the 8 mile deep crater, pulling off the world’s first ever soft landing on the moon’s mysterious far side.

Change 4 will not be bringing back any moon rocks. Although, another mission is said to be done in 2019 for the Change 5, which WILL be bringing back some things. If it were to happen, that would be the first time materials from the moon were brought back to Earth since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 mission in 1976.