What are China’s plans for deep space exploration … and beyond?
The United States has long held the lead in the space race, but the Chinese programme is catching up fast
Will the next words spoken on the moon be in Mandarin?
Possibly.
China aims to land two astronauts on the moon before 2030, with all major hardware now in prototype development and large-scale testing.
Nasa still leads on paper, with Artemis III targeting a crewed landing no earlier than 2027. But the mission faces big technical hurdles. In particular, its massive lunar lander – a modified SpaceX Starship – requires in-orbit refuelling, something that has not been done before.
In congressional testimony in February, Dan Dumbacher, a former senior Nasa official, called the Artemis timeline “very suspect”.
“The probability of the United States safely landing humans on the moon by 2030, with the current plan, is remote at best,” he warned.
How serious is China about building a base on the moon?
Very serious.
China hopes to make its first real brick on the moon in 2028, during the Chang’e-8 mission. A team in the central province of Anhui has built a 3D printer that uses concentrated sunlight to melt lunar soil into bricks that are strong enough for roads and buildings. They have also developed a prototype to extract water ice, using a bundle of tiny drill needles to heat the lunar soil, release vapour and collect it.
Architects in China have proposed various concepts for the research station, including bases on the open lunar surface, at the bottom of craters, and in underground lava tubes. Each features multiple linked modules and is meant to support three to four astronauts during short-term stays.
Will China beat Nasa to the next big discovery beyond the moon?
Possibly – at least when it comes to bringing back rocks from Mars.
China’s Tianwen-3 mission, now in development, aims to collect and return at least 500 grams of Martian samples by 2031.
The plan involves two spacecraft. One will land on Mars to drill, scoop and deploy a drone to grab rocks nearby. The collected material will then be launched into orbit, where a second spacecraft will rendezvous, capture the container, and bring it back to Earth.
That timeline puts Nasa at a clear disadvantage. The US began collecting samples on the red planet with its Perseverance rover in 2021, but the return mission has been plagued by ballooning costs and major delays, with no final plan or launch date in sight.
There is also a real possibility that China could overtake the US in solar system exploration. Nasa’s science programme is facing deep budget cuts, putting missions to Venus, Jupiter, near-Earth asteroids, and even the distant Kuiper Belt at risk – including some that are already in space.
China, meanwhile, is forging ahead. It recently launched Tianwen-2, a mission to collect samples from a near-Earth asteroid, and is planning Tianwen-4, which will target Jupiter and Uranus for a rare leap into the outer solar system.
Will China take the lead in building the infrastructure that deep space depends on?
Probably.
China has already made history by deploying the first relay satellite, called Queqiao, in a special halo orbit beyond the moon. From that position, it enables continuous communication between Earth and China’s Chang’e-4 spacecraft – the first to make a soft landing on the moon’s far side.
Its successor, Queqiao-2, launched earlier this year, is even more capable. Operating in a highly elliptical lunar orbit, it is designed to support up to 10 missions operating on the lunar far side simultaneously.
Looking ahead, Chinese scientists have proposed building a BeiDou-like navigation and communication system for the moon and deep space.
The plan is for 20 to 30 satellites to be placed in various orbits around Earth, the moon, and in between, which will provide high-bandwidth communication and real-time navigation services for a moon landing, moon base construction, and even a crewed landing on Mars.
While Nasa and its partners are focused on building the Gateway lunar station, China is seizing the initiative to create the critical infrastructure that deep-space exploration will rely on in decades to come.
Is China using space to win friends on Earth?
Definitely.
For decades, China was excluded from much of the US-led international space community. The isolation forced China to build its own capabilities, and now the country is positioning itself as a global collaborator – and even a leader – in deep space.
China’s Chang’e missions have helped Europe land its first scientific instrument on the moon and enabled Pakistan to put its first satellite into lunar orbit. For its planned lunar base, China has brought in Russia as a major partner to potentially provide nuclear power systems.
The China-led ILRS is often seen as the counterpart to the US-led Artemis Accords. But unlike the more government-focused Artemis framework, the ILRS is open to space agencies, universities, non-profit groups, and private companies. More than a dozen national space agencies have already signed on.
China is also sharing its lunar samples with the world, a classic soft power move that echoes America’s own Apollo-era diplomacy. While Nasa restricts Chinese scientists from having access to Apollo rocks, China this year loaned Chang’e-5 samples to two US researchers – though they could not use Nasa funding because of legal restrictions.
China has pledged to distribute material from the Chang’e-6 mission, the first and only samples ever returned from the moon’s far side.
What is less known about China’s space programme?
China is preparing its first planetary defence mission, targeting a 30-metre-wide near-Earth asteroid called 2015 XF261. The plan: slam one spacecraft into the asteroid to alter its path, while a second spacecraft stays behind to observe – a strategy inspired by Nasa’s 2022 Dart mission.
Meanwhile, all of China’s Chang’e probes have been given extra missions. Chang’e-2 orbited and mapped the moon in 2010, then flew into deep space and passed by the asteroid Toutatis before contact was lost in 2014.
After delivering nearside lunar samples in 2020, the Chang’e-5 orbiter flew to the gravitationally balanced, fuel-efficient sun-Earth L1 point for orbit control tests and space environment monitoring. It then returned to the moon and became the first probe to enter a distant retrograde orbit, followed by Nasa’s Orion spacecraft during the Artemis I mission.
Most recently, the Chang’e‑6’s lunar orbiter appears to have reached the sun-Earth L2 point, where it may be testing navigation and communications. The mission could pave the way for future Chinese astronomy flagship projects, including the Earth 2.0 exoplanet-hunting telescope planned for launch around 2028.
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BeiDou network
The Chinese navigation satellite system provides positioning, navigation and timing services worldwide.
Its network of 60 satellites has been in full global operation since 2020, with the final backup satellites launched in 2024.
Besides its civilian applications, BeiDou provides navigation and positioning services to all branches of the Chinese military with even higher precision in the Asia-Pacific than GPS offers the US military.
