China has revealed details of its plan to send its first manned mission to the moon before 2030, based on launching two separate rockets, one carrying the astronauts’ vehicle and the other the lander, with the two vehicles meeting in lunar orbit before two astronauts land on its surface.
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Wang Xiang, chief designer of China’s lunar exploration program, announced details of the plan during the 7th Manned Spaceflight Symposium, which opened in Beijing on October 31, explaining that this approach takes advantage of China’s available technical capabilities and infrastructure.
The mission will include 3 astronauts, one of whom will remain in lunar orbit, while two will descend to the surface to conduct scientific experiments and collect samples, using a lunar rover designed for transportation.
If the mission succeeds, China will become the second country to land humans on the moon after the United States , which carried out six manned landings between 1969 and 1972.
How will the two spacecraft reach the moon?
The plan relies on two Long March 10 rockets, launched from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on China’s Hainan Island.
The first carries the Lanyu lander, while the second carries the Mengzhou crew vehicle. The two vehicles travel separately towards the moon, then meet and dock in its orbit.
Next, the two astronauts move to the landing vehicle and separate from the main vehicle to descend to the surface, where they will use the Tansuo lunar rover to conduct experiments and collect samples.
Upon completion of the mission, the landing craft takes off again to dock with Mengzhou, and the two astronauts and the samples are transferred to it before the crew returns to Earth.
This method is similar to the principle of lunar orbit rendezvous used by the American Apollo missions, but China will launch the two vehicles with two separate rockets instead of one.
Wang believes that separating the two vehicles allows each to be developed independently, and helps to unify production and build a family of vehicles that can be used in future missions.
Successive tests before landing
China says the development of the rocket and the two vehicles is progressing according to plan, after completing important tests, including testing the astronaut rescue system in the Mengzhou vehicle at the launch pad and under high air pressure, a landing and takeoff test for the Lanyu vehicle, and a low-altitude flight test for the new rocket.
Information presented during the conference indicates a proposed testing program, beginning with an unmanned flight of Mengzhou to Earth orbit in 2027, followed by an unmanned lunar landing test in 2028, then a test of the two vehicles assembling in lunar orbit in 2029, in preparation for a manned landing before 2030. These detailed dates were included in reports on the presentation, and are not a final, publicly announced schedule for each mission.
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