China launches new Earth-Moon relay satellite

China launched a new relay satellite to provide Earth-Moon communications services, a key step for its future lunar exploration missions such as retrieving samples from the far side of the Moon. A Long March-8 rocket carrying the satellite Queqiao-2, its name meaning “magpie bridge” in Chinese, blasted off at 8:31 am Wednesday from the Wenchang Space Launch Site in South China's Hainan Province.

(Compiled by Wang Ruofan, Lyu Murong)