China seeks company on lunar mission

China has opened up a lunar mission to international cooperation as mission deadlines loom for setting up a habitat on the moon’s south pole.

China welcomes countries and international organisations on its uncrewed Chang’e-8 mission to jointly carry out “mission-level” projects, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said at the 74th International Astronautical Congress in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Monday.

Mission-level projects mean China and its international partners could launch and operate their spacecraft, conduct spacecraft-to-spacecraft “interactions”, and jointly explore the surface of the moon, according to details on CNSA’s website.

International partners are also welcome to “piggyback” and independently deploy their own modules once the Chinese spacecraft lands, CNSA said.

The mission will follow the Chang’e-7 in 2026, which aims to search for lunar resources on the moon’s south pole. The two missions will lay the foundations for the construction of the Beijing-led international lunar research station in the 2030s.

China, which deployed an uncrewed probe to the moon on the Chang’e-5 mission in 2020, plans to send an uncrewed Chang’e-6 probe to the far side of the moon in the first half of 2024 to retrieve soil samples. It aims to land astronauts on the moon by 2030.

China’s timeline coincides with Nasa’s Artemis 3 mission for December 2025. Two US astronauts will land on the south pole, a region previously unvisited by any human. The last time a human set foot on the moon was in 1972 under the Apollo programme. Crewed Artemis 4 and 5 missions are planned for 2027 and 2029, respectively.

Nasa is banned by US law from collaborating with China, directly or indirectly.

A total of 29 countries, including India, which landed a probe near the moon’s south pole in August, have signed the Artemis Accords, a pact crafted by Nasa and the US state department aimed at establishing norms of behaviour in space and on the lunar surface.

China and Russia are not signatories of the agreement.

China, for its own lunar station programme, has secured participation from only Russia and Venezuela so far.