The relay satellite is a precursor mission to the launch of the Chang’e-4 lander and rover, which will attempt to land in the vicinity of the Von Kármán crater within the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the lunar far side around November or December. The relay satellite was launched from Xichang, southwest China, on May 20, and performed a braking maneuver May 25 when passing within 100 kilometers of the lunar surface, sending it on a trajectory towards the second Earth-Moon Lagrange point, some 65,000-80,000 kilometers beyond the moon.
