The space race is in play! China has said it plans to put astronauts on the Moon by 2030 in addition to sending its lunar rover that would land on the Moon in 2026. NASA, for its part, also plans for Artemis III to take astronauts to lunar soil by 2025, which would involve the cooperation of both space agencies.
Taikonauts on the Moon
During a press conference at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, the deputy director of China’s spaceflight agency said that the Asian giant is planning to send a human mission to the Moon by 2030. He also said that on the Chinese National Space Administration’s agenda is the addition of a new module to its space station and the launch of a lunar rover.
China’s plans to land on the Moon are intended for a “short stay on the lunar surface and joint human-rover exploration,” said Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of the country’s spaceflight agency. He also added that they will add a fourth module to the Tiangong space station, which currently consists of only three modules launched one at a time.
China has been planning its space agenda for at least a decade and one of the main objectives was the construction of the Tiangong space station. Since May 2021, launches of the modules that would comprise it began, efforts that concluded in November 2022 when the in situ assembly of the third module was finally achieved. Since then, it has been inhabited by a crew of three astronauts and is planned to remain so for at least a decade. So far, five separate crews have traveled to Tiangong, including the country’s first taikonaut and first civilian.
China and the United States Would Have to Collaborate
According to Xiqiang, the fourth Tiangon module will be launched “at the right time to promote support for scientific experiments and provide the crew with better working and living conditions.” Likewise, the China National Space Administration clarified that it is in full readiness to cooperate comprehensively with the world’s other space agencies, including NASA.
“Our country’s consistent stance is that as long as the goal is to use space for peaceful purposes, we are willing to cooperate and communicate with any country or aerospace organization,” Li Yingliang, chief technology officer of China’s human spaceflight agency, said Monday.
“Personally, I regret that the U.S. Congress has relevant motions prohibiting U.S.-China aerospace cooperation. Personally, I regret it very much,” Yingliang said referring to the restrictive legislation passed by the U.S. Congress in 2011, which prohibits NASA (a federal agency), from using federal budget funds for direct cooperation with China.
NASA’s Artemis III mission is planned for 2025 and could even be delayed a bit longer. While China plans to send the Chang’e 7 mission in 2026 and will put a rover on lunar soil. Both missions are targeting the same lunar landing site, the lunar south pole, which is ideal because it receives solar rays most of the time and also has resources that are believed to be vital for missions on the natural satellite.
If the two missions were to come together, both NASA and the Chinese National Space Administration would have to cooperate to some extent to coordinate their lunar landings.
Story written in Spanish by Alejandra Martínez in Ecoosfera
