China has publicly detailed a plan to land astronauts on the Moon before 2030. Officials presented the sequence of missions at the Seventh Manned Spaceflight Conference in Beijing, offering the clearest timeline yet for the country’s crewed lunar-landing effort.
Wang Xiang, chief designer for China’s lunar exploration program, described a series of launches involving the Long March 10 rocket, the Mengzhou crew spacecraft and the Lanyue lunar lander. The plan uses a lunar-orbit rendezvous, with the crew vehicle and lander launching separately before docking around the Moon.
The first planned step is an uncrewed flight of the Long March 10A, a single-core version without boosters, together with the Mengzhou spacecraft to low Earth orbit. That test is targeted for early 2027.
In 2028, China plans to conduct an uncrewed test of the larger Long March 10, which uses a core stage and two boosters, along with the Lanyue lander. The mission is expected to include a descent to and ascent from the lunar surface.
The next phase, targeted for 2029, calls for two Long March 10 launches. One would carry an uncrewed Mengzhou spacecraft and the other the Lanyue lander, with the two vehicles docking in lunar orbit.
A subsequent dual launch of the Long March 10, this time carrying astronauts aboard Mengzhou, would lead to the crewed landing mission. Chinese officials have described that landing as taking place “before 2030.”
The disclosed schedule does not currently include a mission comparable to Apollo 8 or Artemis II, in which astronauts travel to the Moon to enter lunar orbit or fly close to it before returning to Earth. Mengzhou is nevertheless expected to carry astronauts on missions to China’s Tiangong space station in low Earth orbit.
The timeline gives observers a way to track China’s progress toward its lunar-landing objective. NASA has set a target of returning humans to the Moon by 2028, potentially ahead of China’s publicly stated goal.
Sources: Ars Technica.