China rover sets record for longest stay on Moon

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✷ China's first lunar rover, Yutu, has been operating on the moon for almost two years, setting a record for the longest stay by a rover. It has stayed longer than Soviet Union's 1970 moon rover Lunokhod 1, which spent 11 months on the moon.

✷ Yutu was deployed and landed on the moon via China's Chang'e-3 lunar probe in 2013 making China the third country after the Soviet Union and the US to carry out such a mission.
Yutu experienced a mechanical control abnormality in 2014, but it was revived within a month and, though it is unable to move, it continues to collect data, send and receive signals, and record images and video.

Other records set by Chinese space agency :-

✷ The launch of Dongfanghong-1, China's first satellite, in 1970 made China the fifth country to launch a domestic satellite using a domestic rocket, following the Soviet Union, the United States, France and Japan.

✷ China launched its manned space program in the 1990s and successfully sent Yang Liwei, the country's first astronaut, into orbit on the Shenzhou-5 spacecraft in 2003.

✷ China is planning to be the first country to land a lunar probe on the far side of the Moon, or "dark side of the Moon," which is never visible to Earth.