[14][15][16] The program aims to facilitate a crewed lunar landing in the 2030s and possibly build an outpost near the south pole.

[30] Homes downrange of the Launch Centre were damaged during liftoff when spent hardware wreckage from the rocket, including one piece the size of a desk, fell on a village in Suining County in neighbouring Hunan province.

At periapsis, its variable thrusters were again fired in order to reduce its velocity, descending to 100 m (330 ft) above the Moon's surface.

It hovered at this altitude, moving horizontally under its own guidance to avoid obstacles, before slowly descending to 4 m (13 ft) above the ground, at which point its engine was shut down for a free-fall onto the lunar surface.

[37][38] The stationary lander is equipped with a radioisotope heater unit (RHU) in order to heat its subsystems and power its operations, along with its solar panels, during its planned one-year mission.

[26] The lander is equipped with a 50 mm (2.0 in) Ritchey–Chrétien telescope that is being used to observe galaxies, active galactic nuclei, variable stars, binaries, novae, quasars and blazars in the near-UV band (245–340 nm), and is capable of detecting objects at a brightness as low as magnitude 13.

The thin exosphere and slow rotation of the Moon allow extremely long, uninterrupted observations of a target.

The LUT is the first long term lunar-based astronomical observatory, making continuous observations of important celestial bodies to study their light variation and better improve current models.

[39][40][41] The lander also carries an extreme ultraviolet (30.4 nm) camera,[42] which will be used to observe the Earth's plasmasphere in order to examine its structure and dynamics and to investigate how it is affected by solar activity.

[48] On 17 December it was announced that all of the scientific tools apart from the spectrometers had been activated, and that both the lander and rover were "functioning as hoped, despite the unexpectedly rigorous conditions of the lunar environment".

[50] On 25 January 2014, China's state media announced the rover had undergone a "mechanical control abnormality" caused by the "complicated lunar surface environment".

Although there is no formal cooperation between NASA and the China National Space Administration, the landing provided an opportunity for NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) mission to examine possible changes to the baseline readings of the Moon's exosphere, and will allow it to study how dust and spent propellant gases settle around the Moon after a landing.

[57] NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) took a photograph of the landing site on 25 December 2013 in which the lander and the rover can be seen.

[53] As of March 2015, the rover remained immobile and its instruments continued degrading,[60][61][62] but was still able to communicate with Earth radio stations.

[63][64][65][66] While amateur observers were unable to detect transmissions from the lander, Chinese officials reported that the craft was still operating its UV Camera and Telescope as it entered its 14th lunar night on 14 January 2015.

[68][69] The power source for the lander, which consists of a radioisotope heater unit (RHU) and solar panels, could last for 30 years.

[70] The landing site of China's first Moon lander Chang'e 3 has been named "Guang Han Gong（广寒宫） (Guang: widely, extensively; Han: cold, freezing；Gong: Palace) " or "Moon Palace" by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND).