Slow and steady wins the race, or so goes the fable. The China Manned Space Agency, or CMSA, has repeatedly denied any rivalry with the United States akin to the race to the moon in the 1960s. But step by step, one element at a time over a period of decades, it has built a human space program with goals that include landing astronauts on the moon by 2030 and starting a base there in the following years. And—partly because launch dates for NASA’s Artemis III moon landing keep slipping toward that same timeframe—American space leaders are ratcheting up the space race rhetoric.
“We are in a great competition with a rival that has the will and means to challenge American exceptionalism across multiple domains, including in the high ground of space,” said Jared Isaacman, the new head of NASA, in December. “This is not the time for delay, but for action, because if we fall behind—if we make a mistake—we may never catch up, and the consequences could shift the balance of power here on Earth.”
NASA’s Artemis II is almost ready to take its crew on a circumlunar test flight, and the White House has ordered that American astronauts should prioritize a lunar landing by 2028—but could China slip in ahead? How would a Chinese moon flight work? Does the Chinese space program have technology that matches or beats the United States?
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“Nobody [in China] would argue that we are in a space race,” says Namrata Goswami, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who has written extensively about China’s space effort, “but they might be engaged in activity that showcases China as a space power, and they are very serious about getting somewhere first.”
What are the Mengzhou and Lanyue spacecraft?
China’s lunar hardware builds on existing engineering. It is based on a multipurpose crew ship called Mengzhou, with capacity for six or seven astronauts, though as few as three may actually fly on a trip from Earth to low lunar orbit. (China-watchers dispense with the word “taikonaut” for its crew members, by the way; the word was coined in 1998 and has not been used by the Chinese government itself. China generally uses the word yuhangyuan, roughly translated as “traveler of the universe.”)
Mengzhou, according to what the CMSA has shown, includes a crew section in the shape of a truncated cone or frustum, with a service module holding power and propulsion systems in the rear. If you squint at it, you’ll see a resemblance to the American Artemis or Apollo spacecraft, the SpaceX Crew Dragon or the yet-to-be-flown European Nyx. Basic aerodynamics make a blunt cone a very efficient shape for safely launching a spacecraft and returning it through Earth’s atmosphere.
The Mengzhou command ship uses parachutes and airbags during a 2025 landing test in northwest China.Wang Heng/Xinhua/Getty Images
Mengzhou is billed as reusable, with an outer heat shield that can be replaced after flight. Landings would take place in China’s western desert. “Coupled with the landing method of airbag cushioning,” says the CMSA in a translated statement, “the spacecraft itself can be better protected from damage and allow the reuse of the spacecraft.”
The ship would be launched by a new heavy-lift Long March 10 booster, one of two used for a given moon mission. The Long March 10, as configured for lunar flight, would stand 92.5 meters high at launch and generate thrust of 2,678 tonnes. (The rocket for Artemis II is more powerful: 3,992 tonnes.)
Mengzhou would leave for the moon after another Long March 10 has launched a lunar landing craft called Lanyue. The two would rendezvous and dock in lunar orbit. Two astronauts would transfer to Lanyue and land on the moon’s surface; Mengzhou would wait for them in orbit for the trip home. Lanyue has a stated mass of 26 tonnes and could carry a 200-kg rover.
Chinese authorities say testing of Lanyue began in 2024. Mengzhou should go on its first robotic flight in 2026; Lanyue in 2027. The first joint test mission is planned for 2028 or 2029, with the first crew going to the moon a year after that.
What is China’s long term plan for space?
But to focus on their hardware is to miss out on a major difference between the Chinese and American moon-landing efforts. Artemis is the product of a start-again stop-again debate that’s been going on in the U.S. government since Apollo ended in the 1970s. Goals have shifted repeatedly—often when new presidents took office. Conversely, the Chinese campaign is the outgrowth of a plan called Project 921, first backed by the Chinese Communist Party in 1992. There have been updates and some technical setbacks, but China has pretty much stuck to it ever since.
“What the Chinese space effort has done that others have not is integrate everything,” says Goswami. “It’s not just ‘We’re going to mount a mission.’ It’s bigger than that. They view space as an activity and not missions.”
In other words, she says, each new piece of technology is part of a coordinated effort to create a sustained presence in space, which pays economic, geopolitical and sometimes military dividends. Each part, so far, has fit together with other parts: The first orbiting capsule, called Shenzhou 1 in 1999, led to the first flight by an astronaut, Yang Lewei, on Shenzhou 5 in 2003. That led to space stations (the Tiangong series, starting in 2011), to which Shenzhou crews have been flying since in regular rotation (Shenzhou 22 launched in November). Mengzhou will eventually take over as the workhorse crew vehicle for Earth-orbiting flights.
In the meantime, there has been a steady cadence of robotic lunar orbiters and landers (Chang’e-6 returned the first-ever soil sample from the moon’s far side in 2024), soon to be followed, we’re now told, by Chinese astronauts.
They started slowly, deliberately, with long breaks between missions, only recently picking up speed. At times they have unabashedly looked to other countries for guidance: The Shenzhou crew capsule in the 1990s borrowed heavily from the design of the Russian Soyuz. And several engineers today point out that the Mengzhou-Lanyue plan sounds in many ways like what then-administrator Michael Griffin proposed for NASA’s Constellation program back in 2005—a crewed ship launched by one rocket, a moon lander by another, with astronauts transferring to the lander once they reach lunar orbit . A crew capsule and lunar lander would be too much for one launch, as with the Apollo-Saturn V, because landings would be more ambitious than could be achieved with Apollo’s minimalist Lunar Module, with longer stays and equipment for a lunar base.
“The Chinese are pursuing an architecture a lot like the Apollo architecture was. Which is understandable because their ambitions are to go fast, and Apollo worked,” says a former senior NASA manager who, like several others, asked not to be quoted by name.
“I have a lot of friends who have been watching the Chinese space program for the last couple of decades,” this person continued. “And the one hallmark that we can say is that when China announces dates for things, they typically maintain them.”
“Our Great Rival”
And that is why Jared Isaacman talks of urgency at NASA. He has so far generally avoided the word “China” in public. The Chinese, in his words, are usually “our great rival” or “a competitor.” Some NASA veterans say China may turn out to be giving the agency a helpful push to be faster and more agile. They say Apollo succeeded, in large part, because of the race to beat the Soviet Union. A Chinese challenge—even unstated, even illusory—may help Artemis move along.
“We have a great competitor that is moving at absolutely impressive speeds,” Isaacman told NASA employees, “and it’s unsettling to consider the implications if we fail to maintain our technological, scientific, or economic edge in space. And the clock is running.”
This is part 2 of a three-part series, Back to the Moon. Part 1 is about the technology behind NASA’s Artemis II mission. Part 3 will look at how NASA reinvigorated its human spaceflight program.
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