In a rare public statement, China laid out its detailed plan to land a crew of astronauts on the Moon within three years. The recently revealed roadmap offers the most comprehensive look yet at the nation’s lunar ambitions, laying 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 up to a crewed landing on the lunar surface before 2030, China’s Global Times reported.
The plans include a full-scale landing rehearsal, which will not involve 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 deliver its missions to the Moon, China plans to begin testing in Earth orbit with its Long March 10A, a single-stick variant configured with no side boosters. The rocket is initially slated to launch the Mengzhou spacecraft to China’s Tiangong space station for cargo missions in early 2027 to collect data and demonstrate its reliability.
The following year, China plans on carrying out an uncrewed test flight of the larger, three-stage Long March 10 rocket and the Lanyue lunar lander. The uncrewed lander will attempt to land on the Moon and lift 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 set for 2029. The same orbital rendezvous was used during the Apollo program, except the Saturn V rocket launched both the Apollo lunar module (lander) and the command and service module (the spacecraft that carried the astronauts) together on a single rocket.
For China, the docking of the lander and the spacecraft would clear 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 surface mission is set to last for three Earth days, with the astronauts carrying out extravehicular activities on each day.
The new space race
The four-year sequence, while ambitious, is a major shift from previously vague timelines issued by Chinese officials regarding the nation’s lunar plans.
Shortly following Wang’s statement, videos posted to Chinese social media appeared to show preparations for the upcoming test flights at Wenchang spaceport, SpaceNews reported. The footage showed large containers, reportedly holding hardware for an upcoming rehearsal, being lifted from a cargo ship.
China is apparently wasting no time in putting its plan into action as it races with the United States to land astronauts on the Moon. NASA is aiming to land astronauts on the Moon in early 2028 as part of Artemis 4.
There is still speculation, however, on whether the U.S. space agency will be able to pull it off by then. The biggest concern is whether NASA’s commercial partners, SpaceX and Blue Origin, will have a lander ready in time.
China, meanwhile, is working toward its own 2030 deadline, setting the stage for a new chapter in the race to return humans to the lunar surface. For now, both programs have plenty of technical hurdles left to clear.
