This article appeared on The Conversation. The publication contributed to the article in Expert Voices: Op-Ed.
June 25, 2024, marked a new “first” in the history of spaceflight. China’s Chang’e 6 robotic spacecraft delivered rock samples to Earth from a huge detail on the moon called the South Pole Aitken Basin. After landing on the “far side” of the moon, on the southern rim of Apollo crater, Chang’e 6 returned with around 1. 9 kg of rock and soil, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).
The Moon’s south pole is designated as the location of the China-run International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). In fact, this foreign project has partners such as Russia, Venezuela, South Africa and Egypt, and is coordinated through a type of ad hoc foreign area agency.
China has a strategic plan to build a area economy and the global leader in this field. Its goal is to explore and extract minerals from asteroids and bodies such as the Moon, and to use water ice and any other helpful area resources to be had in our sun system.
China aims to explore the moon first and then asteroids called near-Earth objects (NEOs). It will then move to Mars, the asteroids between Mars and Jupiter (called main-belt asteroids), and Jupiter’s moons, the solid gravitational emissions in space. called Lagrange’s problems for its area stations.
One of the next steps in China’s strategy, the Chang’e 7 robotic mission, is expected to be introduced in 2026. It will land on the illuminated rim of the Moon’s Shackleton crater, very close to the lunar south pole. The giant crater has an illuminated spot, in a region where the angle of the sun casts long shadows that make it difficult to understand much of the landscape.
As a landing site, it is especially attractive, not only because of its illumination, but also because of the simplicity it provides to the interior of the crater. These shadow craters contain vast reserves of water ice, which will be imperative to the structure and operation of the ILRS, as the water can be used as drinking water, oxygen, and rocket fuel.
This is an ambitious move, as the United States also has ambitions to identify bases at the Moon’s south pole: Shackleton Crater is a genuine prime piece. An upcoming Chinese mission, Chang’e 8 (currently planned for 2028 at the earliest), will aim to extract ice and other resources and demonstrate that they can be used for a human outpost. Chang’e 7 and 8 are considered components of the ILRS and will set the bar for an impressive Chinese exploration program.
Lately, NASA is another partner in the foreign agreement known as the Artemis Accords, established in 2020. These describe how the Moon’s resources will be used, and to date, 43 countries have signed up. have signed. However, the U. S. Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the moon this decade, has suffered delays due to technical problems.
It is common to experience some delays in any complex new space program. The next mission, Artemis 2, will take astronauts around the Moon without landing there, but is delayed until September 2025. Artemis 3, which will bring the first humans to the lunar surface since the Apollo era, is scheduled for launch September 2026.
Even if the Artemis timeline may go back even further, China could simply realize its plan to send humans to the Moon until 2030. In fact, some commentators wonder if the Asian superpower could beat the United States in the MoonArray.
Will the United States send humans to the Moon before the end of the decade?Will China be able to do the same before 2030?I doubt it, but that’s not the point. China’s space program is emerging systematically in a coherent and integrated manner. Their assignments don’t seem to have experienced the serious technical messes that other corporations have encountered – or perhaps we’re just aware of it.
What we do know for sure is that China’s existing area station, Tiangong, which translates as “Heavenly Palace,” is operational at an average altitude of 400 km. At least three taikonauts (Chinese astronauts) are expected to remain there permanently through the end of the decade. By the time that happens, the International Space Station, orbiting at the same altitude, will be dismantled and sent on a fiery descent into the Pacific Ocean.
– China presents a video of its lunar base plans, which curiously come with a NASA space shuttle.
“Are we ready for Chinese preeminence on the Moon and Mars?”(editorial)
— China publishes the world’s most detailed lunar atlas (video)
Geopolitics is returning as a force in space exploration in a way we probably would not have noticed since the space race of the 1950s and 1960s. It is quite imaginable that the American Artemis 3 project and the Chinese Chang’e 7 and Chang’ e 8 wish to land in the same place, near Shackleton Crater. Only the crater rims can serve as smart landing spots. Therefore, China and the United States will still have no option to exchange plans and use this renewed phase of space exploration as a new diplomatic era. While maintaining national priorities, the two superpowers, along with their partners, would likely wish to agree on customary principles for Moon exploration.
China has come a long way since the launch of its first satellite, DongFangHong 1, on April 24, 1970. China did not participate in the first space race to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s. This is the case now.
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