The taikonauts have not yet set foot on the Moon , but China maintains a plan to achieve it.
China is becoming a space power by leaps and bounds, with a series of projects that seek to position it as a nation present in the universe.
And one of the many goals he maintains is to take his taikonauts to the Moon .
Over the past few months, its national astronauts have set records for the Chinese Space Agency (CNSA), achieving stays of up to 183 days in space on their own space station for the first time . However, the plans are even more ambitious.
To the moon
The first taikonauts hope to reach the moon before 2030, a much more conservative timeframe than the US plan to return to the satellite in 2024 (and which has already been pushed back to 2025).
To do this, China is working on a ship to replace the Shenzhou, which does not allow travel beyond the planet’s orbit because it cannot withstand high levels of radiation and cannot re-enter the Earth.
This capsule will be able to carry up to six taikonauts after being propelled by the Long March 9 rocket, a kind of analogue of the SLS that NASA is preparing.
Where there is less information is the lunar lander, which is known to be already under development, but still in its initial phase.
The study of the Moon by China has been carried out through the Chang’e missions, which began in 2007, exploring from its orbit to reach its hidden face, even collecting the first lunar samples in 45 years in 2020 with the Chang’ e 5 .
Likewise, China agreed with Russia to create a robotic lunar base, the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) , from where they will face the NASA Gateway and its partners.
