Dave Mosher

On Monday afternoon, SpaceX successfully launched a 4.6-ton <a id="105dcdc7-fcf0-3a4a-a91b-1183f59a77fb" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-nasa-launch-cost-increase-reasons-2020-2018-4?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> Dragon cargo spacecraft </a> full of supplies and experiments to astronauts in orbit.

"Dragon is on its way to the International Space Station. Capture by @Space_Station crew set for early Saturday morning," SpaceX, the rocket company founded by Elon Musk, <a id="de34a9e2-c4ea-3063-a818-14640f6271a0" href="https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1070385014506844160"> tweeted </a> shortly after the Falcon 9 rocket launch.

As is now customary for SpaceX, the company also tried to land the biggest and most expensive part of its <a id="5d0d18b8-a41c-30ae-a144-f37401ad4054" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-block-5-2018-5?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> Falcon 9 rocket </a> — the 16-story-tall booster, or first stage — back on Earth for refurbishment and future relaunch. (Reusing boosters could <a id="62d8a89a-c5d4-33d6-abdb-cdd1155df22c" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-reusable-rocket-launch-costs-profits-2017-6?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> save SpaceX billions of dollars </a> over the years and lower the cost of access to space, since orbital rockets typically crash into the ocean.)

But as the giant booster came screaming back to Florida with some fuel inside, a crucial system failed. The tense moment was captured during a <a id="a5235278-8c1d-300d-aa21-8954ff3bd43f" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Esh1jHT9oTA"> live broadcast </a> from SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

spacex falcon 9 rocket booster scale parts labeled flickr 24038722499_34c10216a3_o

About one minute before the booster was scheduled to land in Cape Canaveral — while it was traveling at several hundred miles per hour — it began to teeter and spin around and around. The sight triggered a mixture of worried "oohs" and "aahs" from SpaceX employees who were watching, then the booster's video feed cut out from the broadcast.

For a moment, it seemed as if the booster was flying out of control toward the ground. But cheers soon erupted from SpaceX employees. Musk later revealed that they were cheering the success of a backup plan: the booster "landed," as gently as a towering object can, in the Atlantic Ocean.

"Falcon landed just out to sea. Appears to be undamaged &amp; is transmitting data. Recovery ship dispatched," Musk <a id="19c1e655-aeb7-3a33-aeaf-e3dbce829201" href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1070386062164283392"> tweeted </a> . He added that the booster will likely be reused for a future "internal" mission (which likely means for the launch of SpaceX's next-generation internet satellites, called <a id="c56c8094-d7bc-3b8e-af75-a0e72578809c" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-spacecraft-pictures-elon-musk-2018-2?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> Starlink </a> ).

A few minutes later, Musk and others shared some dramatic and dizzying footage of the splashdown.

<h1> Watch SpaceXs booster spin then splash into the sea </h1>

Musk shared the 45-second clip below, which picks up where the live broadcast cut out.

The footage shows the booster spinning while firing its rocket engines in an attempt to control the twirling and safely land — but with no ground in sight. It pops out its four landing legs, rockets toward the ocean's surface, plunges in, bobs upward, and then tips over like a felled tree.

Musk blamed the failure on a hydraulic pump that pushes out one of the booster's four titanium "grid fins." These steerable, waffle-like devices help the rocket guide itself toward a landing site while returning to Earth, then stabilize the booster during landing.

As Monday's launch of the CRS-16 mission showed, not deploying a grid fin in time can put the rocket into a tailspin, preventing it from steering toward a landing site.

"Some landing systems are not redundant, as landing is considered ground safety critical, but not mission critical. Given this event, we will likely add a backup," Musk <a id="c0bd5c71-082b-34c3-a9d2-6df6d4009c9c" href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1070388894875545600"> tweeted </a> .

SpaceX wasn't the only one to film the dramatic moment.

Chris Gebhardt, the assistant managing editor of <a id="b53e30e9-fed7-3856-a0eb-98b1d72eb5e8" href="https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/"> NASASpaceFlight.com </a> , was recording the booster's return in Cape Canaveral with several others, and he helped capture the whole event on camera.

The clip below shows Gebhardt's and others' view from the ground. Several sonic booms from the booster's supersonic descent to Earth can be heard before it splashes down just out of sight beyond a barrier island. (Turn on the sound to hear their commentary.)

<h1> Dont out-of-control rockets blow themselves up? </h1>

Rockets that veer out of control typically self-destruct using what's called an automated flight termination system, or AFTS. Such systems are put in place to protect people and equipment on the ground.

But in this case, self-destruct criteria weren't met, and SpaceX got to perform <a id="8cb27bc3-e10a-330f-a1b6-b2cbc39340f2" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/falcon-9-reusable-booster-ocean-splash-recovery-2018-2?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> a soft-ocean-landing maneuver </a> that it has practiced before.

When SpaceX launched the CRS-16 resupply mission on Monday, it made sure the Falcon 9 rocket's booster would hit the ocean if the landing system somehow failed. Only reigniting the booster's engines for a precise landing burn would have pulled it off that trajectory and toward the ground pad.

"A water-ditch landing is safer than an exploding rocket close to the ground," he <a id="c2d69bd3-60cc-3ec3-af9e-86f07414a6ed" href="https://twitter.com/ChrisG_NSF/status/1070396809497993218"> told </a> Business Insider.

SpaceX is preparing to launch its first spacecraft to carry NASA astronauts, called <a id="7de535c2-ca83-30ab-ad6b-0b080fcdc822" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-crew-dragon-capsule-what-its-like-inside-2018-8?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> Crew Dragon </a> , in 2019. If SpaceX rockets misbehave, that could prompt the agency to perform a safety review and delay those experimental launches.

But in this case, nothing that'd be considered critical to NASA's mission — only SpaceX's convenience — seems to have gone wrong.

NOW WATCH: <a id="d4438a96-02ac-36eb-a54a-0888874e6a59" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-falcon-heavy-test-powerful-rocket-engine-2017-9?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> Watch SpaceX test its most powerful rocket engine yet </a>

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falcon 9 rocket booster first stage landing ses10 march 2017 32996435084_6c5662caca_o

SpaceX tried to land a 16-story-tall rocket on the ground, but it plunged into the sea. These dramatic videos show what happened.

An initiative called <a id="046ff5b9-1ec7-30f9-a916-f1726b98c153" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/starshot-alpha-centauri-robots-stephen-hawking-yuri-milner-2016-4?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> Breakthrough Starshot </a> wants to explore another star system using ultra-powerful laser beams and wafer-thin spaceships.

It's a goal that sounds so fantastic, you'd be forgiven for dismissing it as science fiction. But it's no joke, and the project's chief engineer says millions of dollars' worth of work is moving along without any major snags.

Starshot's founders and collaborators include the late <a id="467fe129-da98-3fb4-ac5d-ddaa354f878d" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stephen-hawking-how-the-physicist-inspired-my-career-2018-3?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> Stephen Hawking </a> , Harvard University astronomer Avi Loeb, and Russian-American billionaire Yuri Milner. The concept is based on more than 80 <a id="4ce02fb5-5a7d-38ca-af34-27d44ab93f08" href="https://breakthroughinitiatives.org/research/3"> scientific studies </a> about interstellar travel.

Milner and other Silicon Valley investors have even paid $100 million to cover the first 10 years of research and development.

"They had us go and study a whole range of different approaches of how would we send an object to [another star]," Peter Klupar, the engineering director of the nonprofit <a id="3b6a4a27-ed30-31d1-a90e-490907c13b1c" href="https://breakthroughinitiatives.org/"> Breakthrough Foundation </a> and its Starshot initiative, told an audience at the Economist's <a id="1278135d-b33f-39c7-abcd-34e09e3df037" href="https://events.economist.com/events-conferences/americas/space-summit/"> Space Summit </a> on November 1. "We ended up deciding that the only credible way to do it today was building a large laser based in probably Chile."

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In either case, StarChips may start careening out of the solar system in the mid-2030s. Each one would accelerate to its insane cruising speed within minutes, thanks to the mighty laser blast beamed into space from Earth.

But Klupar noted that a 100-gigawatt laser "beamer" would be powerful enough to "ignite an entire city in minutes" if it were reflected off a mirror in space and back to Earth.

Vaporizing cities is not the goal of Starshot, of course.

Rather, if the plan works out, camera-wielding Starchips could send humanity the first close-up photos of <a id="ff581347-5849-3312-a3fa-88c7a8468205" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-space-telescope-tess-searches-for-alien-planets-2018-8?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> Earth-size worlds </a> by the 2060s. (The voyage would take about 25 years, then receiving data would take another 4-plus years depending on the destination.)

Starshot was unveiled in 2016, and Klupar said work on the project since then has moved right along.

"You would think that this is all impossible, but we have folks at Caltech and the University of Southampton and Exeter University working on about 50 contracts on making all [of] this happen," Klupar said. "No one has come up with a deal-breaker that we can find yet. It all seems real."

<h1> Sprites, lasers, and reflective smoke </h1>

Klupar and others are not deluding themselves about Starshot's <a id="4a1c0442-51b3-3a33-a700-a22b8cf3c009" href="https://sites.uci.edu/energyobserver/2017/09/15/challenges-to-the-starshot-dream/"> many hurdles </a> . Even the project's own <a id="63c3b803-472e-34d8-a99f-fa5900bfc47d" href="https://arxiv.org/search/?query=breakthrough+starshot&amp;searchtype=all&amp;source=header"> studies </a> regularly make room for dead ends.

Some of the internal research frets about the potentially untenable <a id="ea35119a-6455-3ece-a173-9d9d8f1a7114" href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.01306"> cost of building a laser facility </a> . Other papers analyze the concept of a "light sail": the device that would need to "catch" the laser beam and convert its energy into motion.

Some researchers question whether such a sail would <a id="fb01af38-91d7-3f6c-a6b6-887c5364e031" href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.04310"> fall apart </a> when faced with the heat or mind-numbing acceleration (about 60,000 times the force of gravity on Earth's surface). There's also a risk that the sail could steer a StarChip <a id="71428019-fb19-357c-ac94-c6847ac37dc3" href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.05856"> wildly off-course </a> .

"The sail is very thin. It's about 400 atoms thick, it weighs about a half a gram, and it's four meters in diameter," Klupar said. "I think of it as 'reflective smoke.'"

There's also the pesky issue of <a id="19c4f0f1-74d3-308f-aff1-27d1a4b3331d" href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.05284"> gas and dust </a> that lurk between stars; such material could <a id="2bdcecad-c459-30cf-ae5b-5b076e48cbbf" href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.04319"> blast a fast-moving spacecraft </a> into robotic Swiss cheese.

Nevertheless, Starshot engineers and scientists either see ways around all these issues (such as accepting that a majority of spacecraft won't make it) or figure that future technological advancements could solve many of the problems within a couple of decades.

breakthrough starshot starchip satellite unlabeled edited photo

"This first one was just a stunt just to see if it'd work," Klupar said. The launch was a success — the sprites used a temperature sensor and relayed the data to Earth along with a radio "beep" signal.

Such tiny spacecraft could be seen as a precursor to StarChips, Klupar said.

"It feels a lot like the way CubeSats felt 20 years ago," he said, referring to roughly fist- to breadbox-size spacecraft that are pervasive today.

Read more : <a id="61f4395e-53f8-3656-aaae-ecf020169982" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-rocket-launch-webcast-live-stream-video-ssoa-2018-11?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> Watch SpaceX launch a fleet of more than 5 dozen satellites on a twice-used rocket </a>

"People were saying, 'Those are toys, they're never going to develop into anything, there's no way I can see that ever working,'" Klupar said. "And today and look them: Hundreds of millions of dollars is being spent [on CubeSats]."'

Starshot aims to launch more 4-gram sprites next year, though with some significant improvements that will be essential to developing a StarChip.

"We're going to put cameras on there, and we're going to start to put all kinds of devices on them," Klupar said.

mars isro issdc emily lakdawalla ccbyndsa3

Klupar said Starshot's next five years of work is devoted to "learning how to put together these systems so that they actually operate" in the way Starshot envisions them.

But before Starshot reaches for the Centauri star systems, it has a much closer target: the solar system.

Around the year 2030, the project hopes to build a 1-gigawatt laser-beaming base station somewhere in the Sierra Nevada mountains (assuming it secures more funding). Such a facility would then test the concepts of laser-powered interstellar StarChip missions, but at a cost about 10 times less. The ideas is to propel probes past planets, moons, asteroids and more at 1% the speed of light.

"It turns out that with a 1-gigawatt system and a 10-meter sail, you can get to Mars in days, or get to Jupiter in weeks, or get to Pluto in months," Klupar said. (By contrast, it took NASA's New Horizons probe <a id="aaf04bcb-8f69-3766-a9a7-36f3f7bdbbdf" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasas-new-horizons-probe-wakes-to-explore-ultima-thule-2018-6?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> about nine years </a> to reach Pluto.)

Klupar estimated the whole effort would cost about $1 billion, with most of the investment devoted to the laser-beamer. Once that facility is built, though, simple and frequent deep-space exploration could be relatively cheap.

That estimate assumes optimistic decreases in the cost of lasers, energy, and energy storage, but it's still far cheaper than the $1 billion or so typically required to send a robot to another planet.

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The StarChip variant designed for our solar system would be about 100 grams, Klupar said — about 100 times more massive than the interstellar kind. But he added that launching any StarChip would require many nations to be involved and approve of the effort. That's because shooting a 1-gigawatt laser into space is not only bright, but could damage passing satellites (which could especially be an issue for planned satellite-internet constellations like SpaceX's <a id="c56c8094-d7bc-3b8e-af75-a0e72578809c" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-spacecraft-pictures-elon-musk-2018-2?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> Starlink </a> project.)

With the interstellar Starshot effort, the need for global collaboration is even more important.

"The 100-gigawatt laser can be seen across the galaxy. It will be brighter than the sun," Klupar said.

Such a powerful laser blast would turn Earth into a brilliant beacon that loudly broadcasts "intelligent life exists here" to any alien civilization that happens to be staring down the figurative barrel.

"We're not really doing this just for one group of people," he said. "It's also the whole planet."

NOW WATCH: <a id="c196e430-7f92-3c3b-a281-35fd7ec6f31a" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stephen-hawking-warning-space-aliens-seti-2016-12?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> Stephen Hawking warned us about contacting aliens, but this astronomer says it's 'too late' </a>

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starshot spacecraft light sail laser beam earth space alpha centauri breakthrough foundation

A startup is developing a 100-gigawatt laser to propel a probe to another star system. That may be powerful enough to 'ignite an entire city.'

Mars has air about <a id="b769ae02-2b1f-3c21-add5-7e8bfa31b63c" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mars-facts-statistics-2017-5?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> 1% as thick </a> as Earth's. That's so feeble, you might not hear someone talking to you from a few feet away.

Nevertheless, wind and tornado-like dust devils do blow across the Martian surface, and recording the sounds of these phenomena is essential to the success of NASA's newest mission at the red planet.

NASA <a id="01a46c67-e04c-339b-a35e-4dcf3248dec9" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-insight-mars-probe-landing-successful-science-mission-2018-11?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> landed its InSight spacecraft </a> on a flat Martian plain on November 26. The probe is currently surveying its landing site with a robotic arm and suite of instruments to help managers of the $830 million robot plan their next moves.

insight mars lander photo surface photo image 1_pia22736

InSight's robotic arm will eventually place the seismometer — a dome-shaped instrument called <a id="1d2936cb-ca69-301f-a31a-665065581fb5" href="https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/spacecraft/instruments/seis/"> SEIS </a> — onto the Martian surface. But right now, it's still on top of car-size spacecraft's upper deck.

"It's a little like a flag waving in the wind," <a id="6b60c25f-90c7-3b8c-a437-2cfe3f8a857c" href="https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/w.t.pike"> Thomas Pike </a> , the lead scientist behind the SEIS instrument and an engineer at Imperial College London, said during the briefing.

NASA converted the SEIS readings into audio, which <a id="f33dbb39-173a-34c7-ae56-f4e1975b6843" href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-insight-lander-hears-martian-winds"> a press release </a> described as "a haunting low rumble" caused by 10-15 mph Martian breezes. An air pressure sensor on the spacecraft's deck also recorded the sounds of blowing winds on Mars.

Though the air pressure sensor's raw data is inaudible, it can be heard if sped up about 100 times.

"Listening to the sound from the pressure sensor reminds me of sitting outside on a windy summer afternoon," <a id="a9c78824-500b-3826-a810-734b285e33c1" href="https://research.astro.cornell.edu/don-banfield"> Don Banfield </a> , a planetary scientist and InSight team member at Cornell University, said during the briefing. "In some sense, this is what it'd sound like if you were sitting on the InSight lander on Mars."

You can hear the original rumbling sounds in the video below. If you don't have a subwoofer or high-fidelity headphones, NASA also created a higher-pitch version.

Pike said images of Mars remind him of deserts on Earth, but hearing Mars is wholly different.

"Our ear is just not attuned to recognizing what we are listening to," Pike said during the briefing. "It really sounds otherworldly."

More importantly, though, Pike said InSight scientists need to record as many of these sounds as possible so they can cancel them out and ensure the future success of the mission.

"At the moment, there could be a Mars quake happening on the other side of the planet, and we would not hear it above the chatter of the wind," he said. "So we really want to be able to hear the inside of Mars above that chatter."

Collecting good data about Mars' ground vibrations could allow scientists to figure out the internal structure of Mars. That information, by extension, would give them clues about how the world turned into a desert planet instead of fecund blue-green marble like Earth.

Read more : <a id="3df63e96-3fa0-3cdb-a33f-779e1b74dfb0" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/goldilocks-exoplanet-habitability-internal-heat-2016-8?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> We may be overlooking a critical factor in our quest to find alien life </a>

<h1> Hearing dust devils from miles away? </h1>

Another apparent discovery scientists have already made by listening to Mars via InSight's instruments — all of which have yet to be fully deployed — is the nearby passing of dust devils.

<a id="12c6a683-e908-3a42-a287-0d167be40f1f" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8lfJ0c7WQ8"> Dust devils </a> are tornado-like whirlwinds that tear across Mars at about 60 mph. They're not very powerful, given the low air density, but they're strong enough to clean dust off the solar panels of plucky human spacecraft.

Read more : <a id="df61ae34-9cd2-30fc-a614-b1de9ff3654a" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-mars-opportunity-rover-dust-storm-survival-satellite-photo-2018-9?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> These pictures show the exact hill NASA's longest-lived Mars robot may die upon </a>

Such dust devils leave zigzags across the red planet's surface, which spacecraft can see from Mars orbit.

Pike, Banfield, and other InSight team members think some of the very low-frequency vibrations picked up by SEIS reveal where dust devils recently blew through the area.

NASA was even able to pinpoint the paths the dust devils took across the surface, as shown below by thin lines of dots stretching from northwest to southeast.

insight mars lander seismometer accoustic vibrations dust devils map 6_windanddevilsmro_fixed2

"I think this is going to end up being the most-studied point on Mars," <a id="13ff4fe6-ac92-3348-a7a9-14c03d4e52f9" href="https://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Banerdt/"> Bruce Banerdt </a> , a planetary geologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who's leading the InSight mission, said during Friday's briefing. He added that the spacecraft is effectively "the best weather station ever placed on the Martian surface."

NASA will spend a few more weeks recording blowing winds (to learn how to best cancel out those sounds) and surveying InSight's landing area. Then it will decide where to drop the seismometer and a <a id="12f2cd1a-571a-329a-a89a-1b3217b90f4b" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-insight-mars-850-million-dollar-drill-2018-11?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> hammer-like "mole" heat probe </a> , and begin the two-Earth-year-long mission in earnest.

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NASA can hear the 'haunting' sound of dust devils tearing across Mars with its new $830 million lander

China is about to make space exploration history.

Around 1:30 p.m. EST today, the country's space agency is launching a lunar-landing mission to the moon's far side, which is hidden from Earth's view.

The mission seeks to gently touch the spacecraft down on the surface — a feat that no country has ever attempted.

The Chinese moon mission is called Chang'e-4. The name "Chang'e" is that of a mythical lunar goddess, and the "4" indicates that this is the fourth robotic mission in China's decade-long lunar exploration program.

Chang'e-4 may "be the first to realize a soft landing on and inspection of" the far side of the moon, an official <a id="b5b7306f-0e98-3921-a6ef-7275b6c6ecfc" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-moon-robot-launch-date-change-4-2018-8?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> said in August </a> at China's National Defense Science and Technology Bureau in Beijing.

The mission's rover and lander could take unprecedented measurements of the rocks and lunar soil, or regolith, on the moon's far side (a lunar <a id="2c302ae2-c600-3ff8-af28-aac075705d38" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/false-space-facts-misconceptions-2017-7?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> "dark side" is something of a misnomer </a> ), while also paving the way for a lunar landing with people.

Read more : <a id="4e7c83a2-4677-3bab-ac18-8914994dc749" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-moon-landing-mission-private-competition-2018-11?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> NASA's first moon landings in nearly 50 years may happen in 2019. The agency thinks these 9 companies can get it to the lunar surface. </a>

"The mission is ambitious and the science is amazing," Tamela Macial, an astrophysicist and communications manager at the National Space Center in Leicester, England, <a id="46fae311-76c2-3077-abdf-344f3210b7d6" href="https://twitter.com/TamelaMaciel/status/1070962535698972672"> tweeted </a> on Friday. "Chang'e-4 plans to explore the oldest and deepest impact basin on the moon — the South Pole-Aitken basin, which we never see from Earth since it's on the far side."

China is also planning to launch a crewed moon landing mission in the early 2030s. If that happens as planned, it could be the first time people set foot on the lunar surface since NASA's Apollo program <a id="9a1c017d-165b-3dec-ac8e-043d97f60388" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-missions-why-astronauts-have-not-returned-2018-7?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> ended in 1972 </a> .

<h1> What Change-4 will do — and why it could be revolutionary </h1>

jade rabbit change3 lunar moon rover china cnsa cas

Chang'e-4 is made from backup hardware for Chang'e-3, a nearly identical mission that launched the Yutu or " <a id="7f7e08e4-5514-357d-afbf-f15adfdd5699" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pictures-china-has-released-hundreds-of-hd-photos-of-the-moon-taken-by-its-lander-and-rover-2016-1?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> Jade Rabbit </a> " rover along with a stationary probe to the moon's near side in 2013.

Given Chang'e-3's success, officials <a id="19086675-8297-399c-a717-ae80d2fe656f" href="https://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/16/china-celebrates-lunar-probe-and-announces-return-plans"> said at the time </a> that the backup hardware would be retrofitted for Chang'e-4.

If all goes according to plan, Chang'e-4's landing zone will be a <a id="4e744121-ec3d-3b69-ae63-cce57152ba3d" href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lro-20100709-basin.html"> 1,550-mile-wide crater </a> called Von Kármán. The crater exists within a huge and ancient feature called the South Pole-Aitken Basin, which was the site of a cataclysmic impact about 3.9 billion years ago. This collision event may have punched all the way through the moon's crust.

"It's possible this basin is so deep that it contains material from the moon's inner mantle," Maciel said. "By landing on the far side for the first time, the Chang'e-4 lander and rover will help us understand so much more about the moon's formation and history."

The Chinese robots might therefore be able to study some of the moon's most ancient rocks. Those samples could help scientists understand the moon's <a id="b41d45f7-a0f6-38df-acd2-5038b4db32b3" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-formation-giant-impact-earth-synestia-2018-2?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> extremely violent history </a> , since they might be wildly different than anything the US or Russia has ever examined.

von karman crater moon lunar orbiter james stuby lunar orbiter 5 cc01

"The moon's far side is the oldest surface, and there are probably some Earth rocks over there that got transported early on. And there they still sit," Asphaug previously told this reporter for <a id="288cee2d-f5be-35b7-a966-15f50ed7b9b6" href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a7453/why-is-everyone-so-fascinated-with-the-far-side-of-the-moon/"> a story </a> published by Popular Mechanics. "Locked within those samples may be direct records of conditions on Earth between 4.3 and 3.8 billion years ago — right around the time biologists think life got its start here.

Asphaug added: "The moon is a storehouse of terrestrial evolution. It's kind of like granny's attic, where you find her old pom poms and question everything you knew before."

Read more : <a id="947a1e5a-6289-3990-a727-68864c7c5faa" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-moon-distance-edge-of-outer-space-2018-5?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> The space between Earth and the moon is mind-boggling. This graphic reveals just how big it is — and what's out there. </a>

The scouting done by the Chang'e-4 rover might also help identify a suitable place to build a telescope that could study the Big Bang's afterglow, according to <a id="b9429789-b294-3dfb-a438-da8fd56005a5" href="https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/chinas-moon-missions-are-anything-pointless-180961633/"> Air and Space magazine </a> .

That afterglow is called the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, or CMBR, and it's tough to "see" amid all of the signals emanating from humanity's telecommunications. But the moon's far side should be extraordinarily quiet, since that noisy chatter is blocked by the moon itself.

Chang'e-4 could deploy an experiment to take images of the CMBR in low-frequency radio waves — a feat that's practically impossible on Earth.

These frequencies are essential to understanding the universe's and our own origins.

"We need these signals to learn whether and how the universe inflated rapidly in the first trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang," Joseph Silk, an astronomer at Johns Hopkins University, <a id="a1e4fc2a-4209-3c6d-a996-59652823c9aa" href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-08941-8"> wrote in Nature </a> earlier this year.

Chang'e-4 will also test some hardware that China plans to use for Chang'e-5: a mission designed to collect about 4.4 lbs of dust and rocks from a <a id="e0b1bb28-f316-36c4-a9a7-e6f2457a0511" href="https://gbtimes.com/china-confirms-landing-site-change-5-moon-sample-return"> northwest part of the moon </a> and bring those samples back to Earth. That mission is <a id="3f8d3277-2289-3e89-af94-0291b49891fd" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rocket-launches-meteor-showers-2019-space-calendar-2018-11?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> supposed to launch in late 2019 </a> .

<h1> China had to launch a special satellite to make its far-side mission possible </h1>

queqiao lunar relay communications satellite cnsa cas

For the same reason the moon is very good at blocking Earth's radio signals, it's pretty complicated to pull off a far-side lunar landing and exploration mission.

When Apollo astronauts orbited the moon, for example, they temporarily (and expectedly) lost contact with mission control in Houston each time they passed behind the 2,159-mile-wide ball of rock.

To get around this problem, China successfully launched <a id="dc16790d-8342-377b-a1ea-7a76a1035df2" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-moon-mission-earth-image-2018-6?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> a precursor mission in May called Queqiao </a> .

Queqiao is a telecommunications satellite that's now parked in a gravity-neutral spot in space, called a <a id="911e3e2b-2cd4-36e7-a47e-28c2a9fbf36e" href="https://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Mechanics/lagpt.html"> Lagrange point </a> , that overlooks the far side of the moon but maintains a line-of-sight to Earth.

"The name Queqiao means 'magpie bridge' in Chinese and comes from a Chinese folk tale, a love story about a flock of magpies that form a bridge crossing the Milky Way once a year to reunite lovers known as the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, as well as their children" according to <a id="7f250c12-b049-3c22-ac34-a37bbfaf1ec7" href="https://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2018/0519-change-4-relay-satellite.html"> a blog post </a> by Luyuan Xu at the Planetary Society.

Queqiao will act as a "bridge" between Earth and the Chang'e-4 mission after its robots land. Specifically, the lander will communicate with both the rover and the Queqiao relay satellite, and the satellite will connect with mission control at China National Space Administration.

<h1> Lunar silkworms, potatoes, and mustard </h1>

China designed its solar-powered moon rover to last about three months and its lander to function for about a year.

In addition to the rock-sampling and radio-astronomy experiments, the mission will carry a miniature ecosystem of life on Earth.

The lander will hold a seven-inch-long aluminum container, designed by 28 universities, that's packed with potato seeds, Arabidopsis (mustard) seeds, and silkworm eggs, according <a id="8a543126-4309-325f-a5ec-73940c87107e" href="https://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0613/c90000-9227854.html"> to People's Daily </a> , a state-supervised media outlet in China.

Zhang Yuanxun, chief designer of the container, explained the goal for these seeds and worms in the Chongqing Morning Post, according to People's Daily.

"The eggs will hatch into silkworms, which can produce carbon dioxide, while the potatoes and seeds emit oxygen through photosynthesis," Yuanxun said. "Together, they can establish a simple ecosystem on the moon."

Na Li contributed Mandarin Chinese translation for this story.

NOW WATCH: <a id="43627498-c289-3c22-a894-7f41a2e83b74" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-life-earth-would-change-without-moon-disappeared-2018-3?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> What living on Earth would be like without the moon </a>

<ul><li> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-booster-crash-video-crs16-2018-12?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest">SpaceX tried to land a 16-story-tall rocket on the ground, but it plunged into the sea. These dramatic videos show what happened.</a> </li><li> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-rocket-launch-webcast-live-stream-video-ssoa-2018-11?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest">Watch live as SpaceX launches a fleet of more than 5 dozen satellites on a twice-used rocket</a> </li><li> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/osiris-rex-asteroid-bennu-approach-nasa-tv-youtube-2018-12?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest">NASA will reach an asteroid today that may contain raw materials for the origin of life. Watch the rendezvous live.</a> </li></ul>

chang e 4 moon lunar rover front china chinese flag casc

China is about to launch the first robots to the far side of the moon. Their discoveries could be revolutionary.

Update (3 p.m. EST) : SpaceX successfully launched its mission to orbit, re-landed a rocket booster for the third time, and recovered the vehicle's fairings. The Spaceflight Industries payload also successfully deployed all 64 satellites after launch.

SpaceX, the aerospace company founded by <a id="9774e3a8-82c4-398b-a05c-a0d0df7ebb09" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/elon-musk?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> Elon Musk </a> , is about to make history by launching more satellites at once from the US than any company before it.

Around 1:32 p.m. EST on Monday, SpaceX plans to launch a <a id="5d0d18b8-a41c-30ae-a144-f37401ad4054" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-block-5-2018-5?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> Falcon 9 rocket </a> from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Called SSO-A or "SmallSat Express," the mission aims to send up one big spacecraft that will deploy 64 small satellites around Earth in a pole-to-pole orbit.

The satellites range from fist-size to luggage-size, are owned by 34 different organizations, and hail from 18 different countries. They will monitor Earth's oceans, study our planet's changing climate, and track illegal fishing operations, among other activities.

Read more : <a id="9cdde12a-0915-36ca-a9b7-7868df537b27" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-to-launch-70-satellites-radio-tracking-2018-11?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> SpaceX is about to rocket a fleet of satellites into space that will hunt smugglers, pirates, and other 'dark ships' </a>

The SmallSat Express "ride share" mission was arranged with SpaceX by a company called Spaceflight Industries.

"To say this is a historic milestone in the history of Spaceflight and for the commercial small sat industry would be an understatement," Curt Blake, Spaceflight's president, said in <a id="24adc9de-950e-32b5-a2c0-557491c0a01d" href="https://spaceflight.com/thoughts-on-the-ssoa-mission-from-spaceflight-president-curt-blake/"> a blog post </a> . "There is no other mission that has supported so many disparate hopes and dreams of all sorts of organizations; from from startups to established businesses, from space agencies to universities, all of whom need to prove their technologies and business models, to take their organizations to new heights."

sso a spacex cubesat micro satellite deployment orbit earth spaceflight industries

The SSO-A mission has been delayed multiple times since its original November launch date due to bad weather and last-minute inspections. However, the big moment appears to finally be here.

"SmallSat Express went vertical last night on SpaceX's California launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base," SpaceX <a id="8d015c4c-20c0-383b-a72c-9a25fd9e345c" href="https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1069625058996305921"> tweeted </a> on Monday. "Vehicle and weather are go ahead of today's launch window."

The rocket that SmallSat Express will use isn't any ordinary vehicle: It's the latest version of SpaceX's workhorse launcher, <a id="48704965-27f8-3597-a1f3-e1ebfd5692f8" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-block-5-2018-5?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> called Falcon 9 Block 5 </a> . The rocket's lower section, or booster, has already been launched and recovered twice in the past.

Boosters typically crash into the ocean and are never seen again, yet they can <a id="fca26ab9-7d9a-3cfd-ab95-55adb69a1c06" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-reusable-rocket-launch-costs-profits-2017-6?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> cost tens of millions of dollars a piece </a> . But Monday's launch would mark the third time SpaceX has used the same booster — a record for the company. That makes the mission a prime demonstration of reusable, cost-saving rocket technology.

<h1> Watch SpaceX launch 64 satellites at once </h1>

SpaceX broadcasts every one of its launches live on YouTube.

Their feed (below) should start around 1:15 p.m. EST. Lift-off of the Falcon 9 rocket carrying the SSO-A mission to orbit is expected around 1:32 p.m. EST.

If the player above does not work for any reason, you can try to watch it directly <a id="944febd3-240c-358a-a081-4145285a58ec" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq8kS6UoOrQ"> on YouTube </a> or through SpaceX's <a id="2f29f0ea-817a-3a74-adb5-ca5ba502d6c7" href="https://spacex.com/webcast"> website </a> .

<ul><li> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-moon-landing-mission-private-competition-2018-11?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest">NASA's first moon landings in nearly 50 years may happen in 2019. The agency thinks these 9 companies can get it to the lunar surface.</a> </li><li> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-return-moon-mission-commercial-companies-announcement-2018-11?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest">NASA administrator: 'The US is returning to the surface of the moon, and we're doing it sooner than you think!'</a> </li><li> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rocket-launches-meteor-showers-2019-space-calendar-2018-11?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest">2019 will be an extraordinary year in space — here's what NASA, SpaceX, and the night sky have in store for Earth</a> </li></ul>

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spacex falcon 9 block 5 rocket launch es hail 2 november 15 2018 32040174368_1cb3d93808_o

Watch live as SpaceX launches a fleet of more than 5 dozen satellites on a twice-used rocket

Before NASA's <a id="9ecb9a16-b8c3-342e-a16d-a2250f64bc24" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-astronaut-annual-salary-limits-2018-2?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> talented </a> astronauts launch into space, they pose for an official photo shoot.

Most astronauts play it safe: They crawl inside a custom-fit spacesuit, smile for the camera, then get back to their rigorous training. Some, however, choose to bring family, friends, and even pets along for the fun.

During a portrait session by NASA in August 2017, <a id="7abb34e4-3d02-3c40-a102-94449ac307e3" href="https://www.nasa.gov/astronauts/biographies/anne-c-mcclain/biography"> Anne C. McClain </a> — a member of the 21st astronaut class, a decorated US Army Major, an attack helicopter pilot, an aerospace engineer, and a mother — brought her preschool-age son.

"The hardest part about training for space is the 4 yr old I have to leave behind every time I walk out the door," McClain <a id="3eadfa9c-2601-3519-a92a-d9219500d4c3" href="https://twitter.com/AstroAnnimal/status/972844814843523072"> tweeted </a> in March 2018.

McClain arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday at 12:33 p.m. EST aboard a Russian spacecraft called <a id="b40c6dc4-3cdb-3677-a158-52e09d60348d" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/soyuz?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> Soyuz </a> . But at the time of her tweet, McClain was responding to Abby Wambach, a professional soccer player and fellow mom who was seeking support in maintaining a work-life balance.

"I try to remember he will grow up and know what it looks like, behind the scenes, to pursue a dream. He is my 'why,'" McClain said.

The successful mission that McClain just participated in was vital in <a id="abcfbf2b-cb8a-3f33-ae86-c2d321a22422" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-soyuz-rocket-emergency-astronaut-crew-safe-space-station-plan-2018-10?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> restoring access to the space station </a> , since NASA has no spaceship and the previous Soyuz mission in October <a id="13ac85b5-2479-3e40-aa51-850b3e2f7364" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/soyuz-rocket-launch-failure-video-2018-11?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> failed in mid-flight </a> . (An automatic emergency escape system <a id="fd0cab0f-c532-36f0-ae34-c883453c5133" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-us-astronauts-survive-rocket-failure-in-space-station-launch-2018-10?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> carried the crew to safety </a> .)

McClain will now stay on the ISS until June 2019.

In her Twitter thread, McClain posted photos of herself in a spacesuit next to her young son. A representative at NASA's Johnson Space Center told Business Insider that the pictures were taken by photographer Bill Stafford.

Here are the heartwarming images McClain shared, and what her son thinks it's like to have a mom who's an astronaut.

This story has been updated. It was originally published on March 13, 2018.

<h1> "[S]ometimes, I bring him to work with me. Not sure who enjoys it more!" McClain said in March when she shared this image. </h1>

Source: <a id="bdc44f38-6d08-3426-a271-a93dce4c4423" href="https://twitter.com/AstroAnnimal/status/972844814843523072"> Twitter </a>

<h1> When a Twitter user asked McClain whats more difficult — staying or going — she responded: "No easy answer there." </h1>

Source: <a id="1a81d05d-f06f-3266-a34d-90ca9ccee460" href="https://twitter.com/AstroAnnimal/status/973628790554415105"> Twitter </a>

<h1> "One provides immediate comfort, the other achieves not only lifelong goals but also teaches lifelong lessons. Gotta play the long game here," she said. "But it doesn’t make missing out on waffles with the kiddo in the morning any easier. Most parents can relate." </h1>

<h1> McClain told a BART-train-driving Twitter user that her son "would trade me for a train driver without a second thought." </h1>

Source: <a id="8df748d4-4e62-3cf0-a065-a02e12768c60" href="https://twitter.com/AstroAnnimal/status/973630868072910848"> Twitter </a>

<h1> "He thinks its pretty normal" to be an astronaut, she said. "His teacher asked their class what their parents did, and he told her I am an engineer. I asked if he told her anything else. He responded, Mama, NONE of my friends have ever met an engineer...." </h1>

Source: <a id="4a85382f-3c4f-3761-a017-abe85a49b89c" href="https://twitter.com/AstroAnnimal/status/973662755852087296"> Twitter </a>

<h1> McClain isnt the only astronaut to get adventurous with her NASA photo shoots. Former astronaut Leland Melvin, who used to fly aboard the space shuttle, brought his rescue dogs Jake and Scout. </h1>

Source: <a id="f41b23bc-3968-3024-a6c4-e67e4522d521" href="https://gizmodo.com/the-story-behind-this-astronauts-viral-photo-is-even-cu-1791888042"> Gizmodo </a>

<h1> But NASAs portraits didnt show the Sokol flight suit that McClain actually wore when she launched to the ISS aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. </h1>

McClain <a id="ed71ab75-813c-3147-a7d9-07fef7982e15" href="https://twitter.com/AstroAnnimal/status/973529689846403072"> tweeted this photo </a> of the suit in March, saying: "[O]ne day you come to work and see this, and you realize it is not a costume. It is real. Not for training. An actual space suit — and it's going to actual space. And it has your name on it. 😳"

<h1> "[Y]ou have to try out said suit for nearly two hours while pressurized to make sure nothing hurts," McClain said on Twitter. "Well, that nothing hurts too badly. Mission accomplished. My first act in my new real spacesuit was to sit and watch a movie! Oh and play with my gloves." </h1>

Source: <a id="21076b51-f1f3-394b-ae8f-33c3a9caf9ed" href="https://twitter.com/AstroAnnimal/status/973577833753796608"> Twitter </a>

Dave Mosher

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