![]() Other countries – such as Israel, South Korea and numerous member states of the European Space Agency (Esa) – have also placed robotic spacecraft into lunar orbit. The Japanese space agency, Jaxa, is also nearing the end of negotiations to put a Japanese astronaut on the Moon as part of the US Artemis programme. Meanwhile, Japan's Slim (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) mission recently placed its Moon Sniper lander on lunar soil to become the fifth nation on our nearest neighbour. ( Find out more about the mysteries of the lunar south pole and why so many nations want to land there in this feature by Jonathan O'Callaghan.) ![]() After its success, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced it aims to send astronauts to the Moon by 2040. India became the fourth nation to land on the Moon with the unmanned Chandrayaan-3 in August 2023, which touched down close to the lunar south pole. "Its Long March 9 rocket project has undergone changes, so this may delay first missions from 2030 into the early or mid 2030s." "China needs a super heavy-lift launcher to start putting large pieces of infrastructure on the Moon," says Jones. But the fact is, I don't think they will."Ĭhina, of course, may also experience slips in its launch schedule. ![]() "I think they would like to land before us, because that might give them some PR coup. "I think that China has a very aggressive plan," Nasa chief Bill Nelson told a media teleconference about the amended Artemis timescale. Not surprisingly, recently announced delays to US space agency Nasa's own Moon programme Artemis, which has pushed back plans to land astronauts on the lunar surface to September 2026 at the earliest, has produced the phrase "Moon Race" between the US and China. ![]() "It is a tremendous undertaking, but China has demonstrated that it can plan and execute long-term lunar and human spaceflight endeavours." "There is demonstrable progress in a number of areas needed to perform such a mission, including developing a new human-rated launch vehicle, a new-generation crew spacecraft, a lunar lander and expanding ground stations," says Jones. "China is openly aiming to put a pair of its astronauts on the Moon before 2030," says space journalist Andrew Jones, who focusses on China's space industry. The country's ambitions don't stop there. The robotic Chang'e 5 returned lunar samples back to Earth in 2020 and Chang'e 6, which launches in May this year, will bring back the first samples from the Moon's far side. Six years later Chang'e 4 became the first mission to land on the far side of the Moon. China is one of the most ambitious of the nations with the Moon in its sights.Īfter two successful orbital missions in 20, China landed the unmanned Chang'e 3 in 2013. Launching missions to either orbit the Moon, or land on its surface, is now carried out by governments and commercial companies from Europe and the Middle East to the South Pacific.ĭespite the success of the US Apollo missions between 1969-72, to date only five nations have landed on the Moon. The historical two-nation competition between the US and Soviet space agencies for lunar exploration has become a global pursuit. Only 12 human beings have had this privilege – all Americans – but that will soon increase. The number of astronauts who walked on the Moon hasn't changed in over 50 years.
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