It’s finally gone. This Monday, NASA – assisted by Europeans from ESA – was going to launch its Artemis I mission into space, and thus inaugurate a program that aims to return humans to the Moon by 2025. This setback due to a leak in an engine , however, do not do not change the project: the Americans have every intention of preparing a new manned moon landing in the short term. But are not the only ones. Therefore, the Chinese have also set themselves the goal of reaching the moon, which would be a first for them. And the roadmap is ready.
A project born of disappointment
More discreet for the moment and obeying a slower pace, the Chinese project is no less ambitious. On July 24, China launched into space the second of three modules that will make up its own space station on the Moon, a facility called Tiangong or “Heavenly Palace,” which the Chinese hope will be operational by the end of this year. A week later, China also managed to place three of its taikonauts in this module.
A success that advantageously hides a disappointment: because if China embarked on the adventure of such a construction, it is because the United States double-locked the door of the International Space Station (ISS).
China wants its moon base in the 2030s
In any case, the exclusion appears to have prompted the Chinese investigation. Based on the successes in this area listed here by the echoes, China prevailed for the first time, in 2019, as the first country to land a probe, accompanied by a mini-Rover, on the hidden side of the Moon. The following year, he brought back a sample of his soil.
His latest White Paper that summarizes his successes and goals in his space career, published at least in January, has reawakened national hope. In fact, the work has set the 2030s as the date, still uncertain, of the Chinese manned moon landing.
And yet, China’s determination does not stop there. The country intends to establish an International Lunar Research Station, that is, a ground base. A base that at first would be “probably automatic, in which there would only be robots, and then they will try to send taikonauts there,” explained Isabelle Sourbès-Verger, a specialist in space policies and director of research at the CNRS, with The cross.
Russia is not far
Taikonauts, but not only. These will have to make room for some cosmonauts, as Russia is associated with the project as noted here. future sciences which indicates that the station will be in charge of exploiting lunar mineral resources, and providing habitat for a permanent human presence from the period 2036-2040.
The Russian partnership finally marks a new geopolitical shift. On July 26, Yuri Borissov, head of the Roscosmos agency, announced the end of Russia’s participation in the ISS “after 2024”. In fact, the Chinese calendar sees much further.
Source: BFM TV
