Mission Summary
Queqiao was the communications bridge that made China’s far-side Moon landing possible. Launched May 20, 2018, the relay satellite was sent ahead of the Chang’e 4 lander and rover to solve a basic problem: the far side of the Moon never faces Earth, so a spacecraft there cannot talk to home directly.
To provide a constant link, Queqiao traveled beyond the Moon to a halo orbit around the Earth-Moon L2 point, a vantage about 65,000 kilometers past the far side from which it can see both the lunar far side and the Earth at once. It reached that orbit in June 2018 after a journey of roughly three weeks, the first spacecraft stationed there as a dedicated relay.
From L2, Queqiao relayed commands and data between ground stations and the Chang’e 4 mission, which made the first soft landing on the lunar far side in early 2019, and it went on to support later Chinese far-side operations. Its name, meaning Magpie Bridge, comes from a Chinese legend about birds forming a bridge across the heavens.
Sources and notes can be found on the Sources page.
