China has revealed a model of its lunar landing craft at the National Museum of China in Beijing, with which it hopes to carry its astronauts (‘taikonuats’) onto the Moon by 2030 or earlier. The model appears to have a “transfer stage” attached to it at its base, as well as a lunar rover on its side. China is now moving to a two strand exploration process. In the long term it will use a brand new 10.6 m diameter reusable super heavy-lift rocket called Long March 9 whose design – after a move away from an SLS-like expendable plus boosters concept – is now thought to be based on the SpaceX SuperHeavy/Starship design.
However, for initial landing attempts – probably in 2029 – a two launch strategy using a smaller expendable Long March 5 rocket extended to heavy lift capability by an extra third stage. The new rocket is dubbed variously as either Long March 5DY (CZ-5DY) or Long March 5H (CZ-5H). It is going to be used with the mission architecture involving a lunar rendezvous, and has reported payload capability of 70 metric tons to LEO (Low Earth Orbit) and 27 metric tons to TLI (Trans Lunar Injection).
If China does achieve a human mission landing in 2029, this is unlikely to beat USA back to the Moon. NASA’s Artemis III, using a Human Landing System (HLS) based on the SpaceX Starship, is scheduled to take place in 2025.
Model of the proposed Chinese human lunar lander. Courtesy: Cosmic Penguin
