Li Zhenzhou/VCG via Getty Images
China landed a spacecraft on the moon for the fourth time this weekend, successfully placing its Chang’e 6 lander in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon.
After landing on Saturday evening (US time), the autonomous spacecraft will spend about 48 hours collecting samples. It will do this in two different ways: by drilling to collect material from underground, and by using a robotic arm to collect regolith from the surface.
Then, part of the spacecraft will launch from the moon’s surface – likely on Monday evening, US time – before making a return flight to China. If successful, this would be the first time samples have been returned to Earth from the far side of the moon.
A methodical approach
This is the country’s most ambitious lunar mission to date and incrementally builds on China’s previous lunar space flights. With its Chang’e 3 mission in December 2013, the country successfully landed a small vehicle and a rover on the near side of the moon. Five years later, it launched a relay spacecraft, Queqiao 1, and then the Chang’e 4 mission to the far side of the moon. No country had previously landed on the far side of the moon, where direct communication with Earth is not possible.
Then, in December 2020, China landed on the near side of the moon with the Chang’e 5 mission. This spacecraft ultimately returned 1.7 kg of lunar dust and rocks to Earth, putting China on par with the United States and the Soviet Union as the only countries to return samples from the moon.
With its latest mission, Chang’e 6, China has merged elements of its last two lunar spacecraft, returning material from the far less explored far side of the moon. Future robotic missions will focus on exploring the moon’s south pole in anticipation of human landings.
Geopolitical implications
China has set a goal of an Apollo-style moon landing of two astronauts on the moon by 2030, with the ultimate goal of building a “research station” at the South Pole. This could happen later in the 2030s as China continues to expand its lunar architecture. Given the country’s simple approach to date, these timelines are feasible.
While this is playing out, NASA is leading its own international program back to the moon. NASA’s effort is messier, involving a mix of government-only, commercially led and semi-private missions back to the moon. This Artemis program nominally has a target of 2026 for a first human landing, but no reasonable observer believes this date is realistic – a more realistic time frame is 2028 to 2032.
NASA’s plans are considerably more complex, but should ultimately be more sustainable because they offer a mix of government and private investment. And they are more affordable because they will use partially or largely reusable rockets and spacecraft. NASA is trying to transition to reusable rockets and in-space refueling, which means taking a gamble on the future of space transportation rather than looking back to what worked during the Apollo era. But it’s not clear whether the future of reusable spaceflight will happen in five years, as NASA hopes, or in 20 years.
The most dominant space storyline for the rest of this decade is how this ‘race’ plays out, both in terms of whether the Chinese space program or NASA will reach the moon first, and, just as importantly, which of the countries will have a more sustainable program has. . For China, replicating the achievements of NASA’s Apollo program may be enough. For NASA, this would represent a policy error.
Much is at stake
While China’s plan has the advantage of simplicity, Greg Autry, director of space leadership at the Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona State University, told Ars that the United States has the right approach in the long run because its commercial and government partnerships are more robust . .
“China’s manned space program has been slow,” said Autry, co-author of Red moon rising about the space race between the US and China. “SpaceX has flown more people to space in the last four years than China has since the first flight of their program more than 20 years ago. America has better technology and a better and more diverse collection of launch vehicles and dozens of companies working on solutions to the bottlenecks we face in landers and spacesuits.”
Another wrinkle in the competitive battle is that China’s authoritarian government provides stability and the benefit of long-term planning. NASA is sensitive to changing political priorities. Autry said the United States must commit to the Artemis plan, and leaders in Congress must continue to support NASA and pressure the agency to take action with enthusiasm.
For symbolic reasons, Autry said, the United States should land people on the moon again before China — even if NASA did that more than 50 years ago. “If China wins this race, their model of authoritarian state socialism will gain popularity and America will look more dysfunctional than ever,” he said.