In a rare public statement, China laid out its detailed plan to land a crew of astronauts on the moon within three years. The newly revealed roadmap offers the most comprehensive look yet at the nation’s lunar ambitions, setting out the steps it intends to take to get its crew to the surface of the Moon as the new space race heats up. During the 7th Manned Space Symposium in Beijing, Wang Xiang, chief designer of China’s lunar exploration program, presented a comprehensive overview of a series of missions leading to a manned landing on the lunar surface before 2030, China’s Global Times reported. Plans include a full-scale landing test, which will not include a crew on board, as well as a rendezvous in lunar orbit before China’s first attempt to land astronauts on the moon. A Roadmap to the Moon To carry out its Moon missions, China plans to begin testing in Earth orbit with its Long March 10A, a single-mast variant configured without side thrusters. The rocket is initially planned to launch the Mengzhou spacecraft to China’s Tiangong space station for cargo missions in early 2027 to collect data and demonstrate its reliability. Next year, China plans to carry out an uncrewed test flight of the larger three-stage Long March 10 rocket and the Lanyue lunar lander. The unmanned lander will attempt to land on the Moon and take off again. Lanyue and Mengzhou will then launch on two separate Long March 10 rockets and attempt to dock in lunar orbit for a full-scale rehearsal mission scheduled for 2029. The same orbital rendezvous was used during the Apollo program, except that the Saturn V rocket launched both the Apollo lunar module (lander) and the command and service module (the spacecraft carrying the astronauts) together on a single rocket. For China, docking the lander and spacecraft would pave the way for an attempt to land astronauts on the Moon. The crew is planned to consist of three taikonauts, two of whom will be assigned to land on the lunar surface. The mission to the surface will last three Earth days and the astronauts will carry out extravehicular activities each day. The new space race The four-year sequence, while ambitious, is a major change from previously vague timelines issued by Chinese officials regarding the nation’s lunar plans. Shortly after Wang’s statement, videos posted on Chinese social media appeared to show preparations for upcoming test flights at the Wenchang spaceport, SpaceNews reported. The images showed large containers, supposedly containing hardware for an upcoming test, being removed from a cargo ship. China is apparently wasting no time in putting its plan into practice as it competes with the United States to land astronauts on the Moon. NASA aims to land astronauts on the Moon in early 2028 as part of Artemis 4. However, there is still speculation about whether the US space agency will be able to achieve it by then. The biggest concern is whether NASA’s commercial partners SpaceX and Blue Origin will have a lander ready in time. Meanwhile, China is working toward its own 2030 deadline, laying the groundwork for a new chapter in the race to return humans to the lunar surface. For now, both programs still have many technical hurdles to overcome.
