03 January 2019
Essential Capital (a.k.a 元航资本 in Chinese) is a Chinese VC firm founded in 2015 and based in Beijing. Essential Capital considers itself an early-middle stage investor, with a major focus on “hard tech”. As an early mover within the VC world into the burgeoning Chinese space industry, the company’s founders gave some interesting insights on the topic in an interview to the Chinese media Iyiyou 亿欧 in December 2018 (see [1]). This article sums up the main takeaways and adds further comment along the way. Please note that the interview was not realized by The China Aerospace Blog.
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6 February 2019
On 30 January, “NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) approached the Von Kármán crater from the east, it rolled 70 degrees to the west to snap this spectacular view looking across the floor toward the west wall. Because LRO was 330 kilometers (205 miles) to the east of the landing site, the Chang'e 4 lander is only about two pixels across (bright spot between the two arrows), and the small rover is not detectable.”
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also compare the story by Mike Wall on Space.com
NASA Probe Spots China's Chang'e 4 Lander on Far Side of the Moon (Photo)

02 February 2019
With the historic success of its Chang’e 4 lunar mission, China opened a new chapter in lunar exploration and sent a clear declaration of intent about its long-term ambition to send astronauts back to the Moon. European countries, which will gather this year to agree on ESA’s future programmes, now need to carefully reflect on the consequences of Chinese lunar plans and define what role they want to play in the post-ISS space exploration context.
This ESPI Brief sheds outlines the possible implications brought by China’s expanding ambitions in the field human spaceflight and discusses European preparedness to cope with such implications.
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02 February 2019
For us, the GoTaikonauts! team, it was the most remarkable photo of the New Year and is remains for us the photo of Chang'e 4's landing on the far side of the Moon when one of the ground staff at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center (BACC) in Beijing went emotional and media captured her tears. (and here) Now we know who it was: Zhang He - Executive Director of the project and staff of China Academy of Space Technology. Chinese media revealed her story.
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