China has big plans for the Moon.
Given China’s focus on the Moon, it’s been expected for years that the country would eventually try to land people on the lunar surface, too. As the nation’s lunar program has advanced, China has also made significant progress in its human exploration program. In 2021, the country launched the core module of a new space station that will be built out in orbit around Earth.
It’s unclear when China plans to complete this station or when it’s aiming to land humans on the lunar surface. But as China pushes toward the Moon, NASA is working toward an ambitious lunar landing of its own. The US space agency’s major human spaceflight program at the moment is Artemis, which seeks to send the first woman and first person of color to the lunar surface.
Though the Moon has always been a big focus for China, the country is also eying the exploration of other planets in our Solar System. It hopes to launch probes to near-Earth asteroids in the next five years, as well as study ways to send spacecraft to the Jupiter system and to Mars again, with plans to bring back samples from the Red Planet.
The white paper lists a great deal of other space goals, such as building out China’s space station, updating its satellite technologies, improving its space transportation and rocket systems, creating new rocket engines, and more. It’s a pretty long to-do list for the next half-decade, but so far, China has made it clear that space exploration is a priority.Subscribe to get the best Verge-approved tech deals of the week.
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