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China has given us some details about the epic moon landing it plans to pull off a few years from now.
Chinese officials laid out the roadmap for its crewed lunar campaign at the 7th Manned Space Symposium, which was held Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 in Beijing. The campaign consists of four missions, culminating in a crewed touchdown “before 2030,” according to media reports.
That timeline — which is consistent with previous statements made by the China Manned Space Agency — keeps the pressure on the U.S., which aims to put its own astronauts down on the moon in 2028, via NASA’s Artemis program.
Leaked slide confirms the four-mission progression toward China’s crewed lunar landing:
🚀2027: Maiden flight of Long March 10A carrying Mengzhou CSS cargo resupply mission, to validate the new human-rated vehicle and Mengzhou’s orbital operations in LEO.
🚀2028: First flight of the heavier CZ-10 with an uncrewed Lanyue lander performing a lunar descent and ascent test, exercising the lander’s propulsion and guidance.
🚀🚀2029: Dual CZ-10 launches of Mengzhou and Lanyue for a full-scale lunar-orbit rehearsal, demonstrating rendezvous, docking, and integrated operations.
🚀🚀Before the end of 2030: Dual CZ-10 crewed lunar landing mission.November 1, 2026
China shooting for the moon
The first mission in China’s four-part lunar campaign is scheduled to fly in 2027, according to CNSpaceflight, an X account that keeps a close eye on China’s activities in space. The outlet cited an X user who shared a presentation slide of the plan.
That launch — the first of of China’s new Long March 10A rocket — will send an uncrewed Mengzhou spacecraft to low Earth orbit (LEO) for a series of tests. Mengzhou, whose name means “Dream Vessel,” is the next-gen crew capsule that will carry Chinese astronauts to lunar orbit.
Mission number two, launching in 2028, will involve a different set of hardware — the more powerful Long March 10 rocket and the Lanyue (“Embracing the Moon”) lunar lander. This will also be an uncrewed flight, and it will mark the debut of the Long March 10, which will send Lanyue to orbit around the moon. If all goes to plan, Lanyue will touch down on the moon and then launch itself back to lunar orbit.
Mission number three, flying in 2029, will also target an uncrewed lunar landing, but it will feature two Long March 10 launches — one apiece for Mengzhou and Lanyue. The two spacecraft will conduct a rendezvous and docking rehearsal in lunar orbit, then separate for Lanyue’s trip down to the surface.
This will set the stage for mission four — the real deal, in which two Long March 10s launch a crewed Mengzhou and an uncrewed Lanyue “before 2030.” The two vessels will dock in lunar orbit, and the astronauts will move into Lanyue for their historic lunar landing.
Three astronauts will apparently launch on Mengzhou, and two of them will land on the moon aboard Lanyue, according to CNSpaceflight. The duo will spend three days on the lunar surface, conducting moonwalks on each of those days.
And about that “before 2030” timeline: The wording may have been chosen very carefully.
“One reading is that 2029 coincides with the 80th anniversary of the current government, creating a strong internal incentive to achieve the landing that year. At the same time, the technical schedule (new Long March 10 family, Mengzhou, Lanyue, dual-launch operations) remains aggressive; committing publicly to 2029 would create significant political exposure if any major test slips,” CNSpaceflight wrote in a Nov. 2 X post.
“Using ‘before 2030’ therefore functions as deliberate wording flexibility: a 2029 landing can still be presented as an early historic success, while a slip into 2030 remains inside the stated goal without requiring a formal target revision. You just need to put ‘year-end’ after ‘before 2030,'” the outlet added.
NASA’s plan
NASA’s Artemis program has already sent astronauts around the moon, doing so this past April on the Artemis II mission. The agency is currently gearing up for Artemis III, a crewed flight to LEO that will test rendezvous and docking procedures between NASA’s Orion capsule and one or both of the Artemis program’s two private crewed landers — SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon.
Artemis III is currently on track to fly in the summer of 2027, NASA officials have said. But an on-time liftoff is far from guaranteed, as both Starship and Blue Moon still have some boxes to check.
Starship just reached Earth orbit for the first time on Sept. 28, for example, and it has yet to demonstrate off-Earth refueling, which will be a crucial part of any Starship mission beyond Earth orbit. And Blue Moon has yet to leave the ground at all. The Blue Origin lander is scheduled to fly for the first time next spring, on an uncrewed test mission that will send it to the lunar surface.
If all goes well on Artemis III, NASA will be clear to start prepping for Artemis IV, which will put astronauts down near the lunar south pole aboard either Starship or Blue Moon. (It’s unclear at the moment which lander NASA will choose.)
NASA is currently targeting early 2028 for the launch of Artemis IV. If that schedule holds, the agency will beat China and pull off the first crewed lunar landing since Apollo 17 back in 1972.
But the new moon race won’t end there, because this one isn’t all about flags and footprints. Both NASA and China aim to build bases on the lunar surface over the next decade or so, setting up humanity’s first true outpost on a world beyond Earth. The stakes are high, NASA and U.S. military officials have stressed: Whoever does so first can claim the best spots and get the best access to key lunar resources such as water ice. The leader will also get to establish norms of behavior on the moon, which at the moment is a bit of a Wild West of exploration.
