China reveals plans for manned lunar expedition
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China aspires to establish a research facility on the lunar surface by 2030.
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A Long March rocket carrying a crew of Chinese astronauts in a Shenzhou-16 spaceship lifts off at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Southwestern China on Tuesday, May 30, 2023. (AP)
China has disclosed plans for a crewed trip to the Moon by 2030, with the goal of establishing a research facility on the lunar surface.
According to Chinese state media quoting a China Manned Space Agency engineer, Chinese astronauts, known as taikonauts, would sail on the Long March-10 carrier rocket before docking with a separate lunar lander to descend to the Moon's surface.
The twin-rocket concept would achieve China's goal of creating a heavy-duty rocket powerful enough to transport both people and a lander probe into space.
In May, China's Manned Space Agency confirmed that the country will launch its first civilian astronaut into space as part of a crewed mission to the Tiangong space station.
Once their tasks are complete and the appropriate information is collected, the lander will transport them back to the orbiting spacecraft, on which they will return to Earth, said Zhang Hailian, deputy chief engineer at China Manned Space, at a summit in Wuhan, central China.
The competition to send people to the moon has heated up in recent years, with both China and the United States eyeing potential lunar mineral riches. Creating lunar colonies might also enable future crewed expeditions to other worlds like Mars.
To meet China's lunar objectives, Chinese researchers are building the super-heavy Long March 10 carrier rocket, a new-generation crewed spacecraft, a lunar lander, and a crewed lunar rover, according to Zhang.
China returned lunar samples from the moon in an unmanned mission in 2020, making China the third nation to do so after the United States and the Soviet Union.
NASA has inked contracts with SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin to create lunar landers for its Artemis program, with SpaceX's Starship rocket slated to undergo critical testing in the coming six weeks.
