As the United States and China engage in an escalating space competition, Beijing is pushing forward with ambitious plans to place its first astronauts on the lunar surface by 2030.
While China has previously only deployed robotic missions to the moon, these expeditions have demonstrated the nation’s advancing space technology capabilities that will be essential for achieving human lunar exploration.
Currently, Chinese engineers are developing and testing all the necessary equipment for a successful crewed moon landing. In August of last year, they conducted trials of their lunar landing vehicle at a specially constructed facility in Hebei province designed to replicate conditions on the moon’s surface.
The testing site featured specialized coatings that matched the reflective properties of lunar soil and was scattered with rocks and crater formations to simulate the actual lunar environment. The landing craft’s systems for both descent to and ascent from the moon underwent thorough evaluation during these tests.
The lunar landing vehicle, called Lanyue – which translates to “embrace the moon” in Chinese – is designed to ferry astronauts between lunar orbit and the moon’s surface. According to China’s human spaceflight agency, it will also function as living quarters, electrical supply, and information hub once crews arrive on the moon.
Additional critical components currently in development and testing phases include the Long March 10 heavy-duty rocket designed to launch the Mengzhou crew capsule into space. Engineers are also working on specialized suits for lunar walks, crewed exploration vehicles, moon-orbiting observation satellites, and new ground-based systems to handle mission navigation and Earth communications.
Should China achieve a successful human moon landing before 2030, it would advance their objectives to construct a “basic model” of the International Lunar Research Station by 2035. Wu Weiren, who leads China’s lunar exploration program design, describes this as including a “comprehensive scientific facility” and “a certain scale of resource development and utilization.”
This human outpost, developed jointly by China and Russia, might incorporate a nuclear power plant on the lunar surface for energy generation.
Wu indicated in a 2024 presentation that by 2045, the ILRS would expand to feature a “lunar orbital station as the hub” for conducting “in-depth resource development and utilization, and relevant technical verification and scientific experimental research for manned landing on Mars.”
China’s upcoming crewed lunar missions will depend significantly on information gathered through the nation’s robotic moon expeditions. In June 2024, China achieved the historic milestone of being the first nation to bring back lunar samples from the moon’s far side using the Chang’e-6 spacecraft, which visited the South Pole-Aitken basin.
Two additional robotic missions, Chang’e-7 and Chang’e-8, are scheduled for completion before 2030. These will provide Beijing with additional data about the lunar region where China intends to send astronauts and ultimately establish a permanent human settlement.
Through its recent unmanned lunar expeditions, China has become the sole country to successfully collect and return lunar material from both the moon’s near and far sides.
