June 25, 2024 marked a new “first” in the history of spaceflight. China’s Chang’e 6 robotic probe delivered rock samples back to Earth from a huge feature on the moon called the South Pole-Aitken Basin.
After landing on the “far side of the moon,” the southern rim of Apollo Crater, Chang’e 6 returned with approximately 1.9 kilograms of rock and soil, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).
The South Pole of the Moon is designated as the location for the future China-led International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). This truly international effort has partners including Russia, Venezuela, South Africa and Egypt and is coordinated ad hoc by the International Space Agency.
China has a strategic plan to build a space economy and become a world leader in this field. It intends to explore and mine minerals from asteroids and bodies such as the Moon, and exploit water ice and any other useful space resources available in our solar system.
China aims to first explore the moon and then asteroids known as near-Earth objects (NEOs). It will then move on to Mars, asteroids between Mars and Jupiter (known as main belt asteroids), and Jupiter’s moons, using stable gravitational points in space known as Lagrange points for its space stations.
One of China’s next steps in this strategy, the Chang’e 7 robotic mission, is expected to launch in 2026. It will land on the illuminated rim of the moon’s Shackleton Crater, very close to the moon’s south pole.
The rim of this large crater has a point that is constantly illuminated, in an area where the angle of the sun casts long shadows that cover most of the landscape.
As a landing site, it is particularly attractive – not only because of the lighting, but also because of the easy access to the interior of the crater. These shadowed craters contain vast reserves of water ice, which will be indispensable in the construction and operation of the ILRS, as the water can be used as drinking water, oxygen and rocket fuel.
It’s a bold move as the US also has ambitions to establish bases on the south pole of the moon – Shackleton Crater is prime real estate. A later Chinese mission, Chang’e 8 (currently planned for 2028 at the earliest), will aim to mine ice and other resources and demonstrate that they can be used to support a human base.
Both Chang’e 7 and 8 are considered part of the ILRS and will set the stage for China’s impressive reconnaissance program.
NASA is currently seeking additional partners for an international agreement known as the Artemis Accords, which was concluded in 2020. These set out how resources on the Moon should be used, and to date 43 countries have signed up.
But the US Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the moon this decade, has run into delays due to technical problems.
It is normal for any complex new space program to experience some delays. Another mission, Artemis II, will take astronauts around the moon without landing on it, but has been delayed until September 2025. Artemis III, which is expected to carry the first humans to the lunar surface since the Apollo era, is not planned earlier. than in September 2026.
While that Artemis timeline could slip even further, China may fulfill its plans to land humans on the moon by 2030. Indeed, some commentators have questioned whether the Asian superpower could beat the US back to the moon.
Geopolitics in space
Will the US land men on the moon before the decade is out? I think yes. Can China do the same by 2030? I doubt it – but that’s not the point here.
China’s space program is systematically growing in a consistent and integrated manner. Her missions don’t seem to have experienced the serious technical problems other ventures have encountered – or maybe they’re just not telling us about them.
What we do know for certain is that China’s current space station, Tiangong – which translates to “Heavenly Palace” – is operating at an average altitude of 400 kilometers.
There is a plan to permanently inhabit at least three taikonauts (Chinese astronauts) by the end of the decade. Before that happens, the International Space Station, orbiting at the same altitude, will be decommissioned and sent on a fiery descent into the Pacific Ocean.
Geopolitics is back as a force in space exploration in a way we may not have seen since the space race of the 1950s and 1960s. It is quite possible that the American Artemis III mission and the Chinese Chang’e 7 and Chang’e 8 missions will all want to land in the same place near Shackleton Crater.
Only the rims of the craters can act as good landing sites, so China and the US may have no choice but to exchange plans and use this renewed phase of space exploration as a new era in diplomacy.
While maintaining national priorities, the two superpowers, along with their partners, may have to agree on common principles when it comes to lunar exploration.
China has come a long way since its first satellite, DongFangHong 1, was launched on April 24, 1970. China was not a player during the original space race to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s. I sure do now.
Simonetta Di Pippo is director of the Space Economy Evolution Lab, Bocconi University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.