Skip to main content

China is Planning to Have Humans on the Moon by 2030

As NASA prepares to return astronauts to the Moon with Artemis III, China is ramping up its efforts for a crewed lunar landing, targeting earlier than 2030. Lin Xiqiang, the deputy director of China’s Manned Space Agency announced that the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP) is preparing for a “short stay on the lunar surface and human-robotic joint exploration.”

Lin Xiqiang made the announcement at a science conference, adding that there will be several robotic missions to the Moon planned before then, with more sample returns and tests of technology to enable a sustained human presence on the Moon.

Artemis III is currently scheduled for launch in December 2025, and would be the second crewed Artemis mission and the first crewed lunar landing since Apollo 17 in December 1972.

“We have a complete near-Earth human space station and human round-trip transportation system,” complemented by a process for selecting, training and supporting new astronauts, Lin Xiqiang said, according to CGTN, a state-run foreign-language news channel based in Beijing, China.

This echoes a statement earlier this year by Weiren Wu, the Chief Designer of CLEP who said there would be Chinese footprints on the lunar surface by 2030.

A still from a camera aboard the Shenzhou-16 spaceship showing the China Space Station, May 30, 2023. Credit: Chinese Media Group.

In addition, early today China launched a new three-person crew to its orbiting space station on Tuesday, including China’s first civilian astronaut. The Shenzhou 16 spacecraft lifted off from the Jiuquan launch center on a Long March 2-F rocket just after 9:30 a.m. (0130 GMT) Tuesday, and the crew has now docked to the Tiangong space station.

The Shenzhou-16 crew will replace the three-member crew of the Shenzhou-15, who arrived at the space station late in November. The two crews will briefly both be on board the Tiangong station, and the Shenzhou-15 crew will return to Earth after completing their six-month mission. Civilian and payload expert Gui Haichao is a professor at Beijing’s top aerospace research institute, and will conduct experiments. He joins mission commander Maj. Gen. Jing Haipeng, who is making his fourth flight to space, and spacecraft engineer Zhu Yangzhu.

The crew will stay aboard the station for around five months, during which they will conduct scientific experiments and regular maintenance.

The station has three modules and was completed at the end of last year after 11 crewed and uncrewed missions since April 2021.

The skills garnered from operating the space station, Lin Xiqiang said, will help in mastering key technologies such as Earth-Moon crewed round-trip missions, short-term stays on the lunar surface, and human-robot joint exploration. This includes multiple tasks of landing, roving, sampling, researching and returning, and forming an independent capability of Chinese lunar exploration.

The post China is Planning to Have Humans on the Moon by 2030 appeared first on Universe Today.



from Universe Today https://ift.tt/KEoeCx9
via IFTTT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

More Data and Machine Learning has Kicked SETI Into High Gear

For over sixty years, astronomers and astrophysicists have been engaged in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). This consists of listening to other star systems for signs of technological activity (or “technosignatures), such as radio transmissions. This first attempt was in 1960, known as Project Ozma, where famed SETI researcher Dr. Frank Drake (father of the Drake Equation) and his colleagues used the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia to conduct a radio survey of Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani. Since then, the vast majority of SETI surveys have similarly looked for narrowband radio signals since they are very good at propagating through interstellar space. However, the biggest challenge has always been how to filter out radio transmissions on Earth – aka. radio frequency interference (RFI). In a recent study, an international team led by the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (DIAA) applied a new deep-learning algorithm to data collecte...
Post a Comment
Read more

The First Close-Up Picture of Star Outside the Milky Way

Like a performer preparing for their big finale, a distant star is shedding its outer layers and preparing to explode as a supernova. Astronomers have been observing the huge star, named WOH G64, since its discovery in the 1970s. It’s one of the largest known stars, and also one of the most luminous and massive red supergiants (RSGs). The star is surrounded by an envelope of expelled star-stuff, which could indicate it’s getting ready to explode. WOH G64 isn’t in the Milky Way; it’s in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the Milky Way’s largest satellite galaxy. Getting these detailed image is quite a feat for the ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer. It’s also quite an accomplishment for the team of scientists behind the image. They’ve published their images and the results of their observations of the star in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. Their research is titled “ Imaging the innermost circumstellar environment of the red supergiant WOH G64 in the Large Magellanic ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Planetary Surfaces: Why study them? Can they help us find life elsewhere?

Universe Today recently explored the importance of studying impact craters and what they can teach us about finding life beyond Earth. Impact craters are considered one of the many surface processes—others include volcanism, weathering, erosion, and plate tectonics—that shape surfaces on numerous planetary bodies, with all of them simultaneously occurring on Earth. Here, we will explore how and why planetary scientists study planetary surfaces, the challenges faced when studying other planetary surfaces, what planetary surfaces can teach us about finding life, and how upcoming students can pursue studying planetary surfaces, as well. So, why is it so important to study planetary surfaces throughout the solar system? “Planetary surfaces record the history of the Solar System, a history that’s almost entirely lost to us here on Earth,” Dr. Paul Byrne, who is an Associate Professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, tells  Uni...
Post a Comment
Read more