China’s planned, years-long push to expand its reach from Earth orbit to the moon and even Mars has worried U.S. officials, especially as NASA’s Artemis lunar mission faces delays.
Speaking publicly in Beijing for the first time since the handover on Thursday, Bian Zhigang, deputy director of the China National Space Administration, said the country has “the unique advantage of a system that mobilizes all resources across the country” to advance its space ambitions.
Chinese officials have blamed longstanding U.S. laws banning direct space research cooperation for hindering cooperation between the two countries, but the U.S. position “cannot stop China from making great strides in its space program,” he said, noting that the project has allowed China to hone key technology areas that will enhance its long-term space capabilities.
Bian’s comments underscore China’s ambitions to become a space superpower and scientific power as the United States’ biggest rival in space exploration, with plans to land Chinese astronauts on the moon and establish a base on the lunar south pole by 2030. This opens up new frontiers in a broader competition with the United States that also include computer chips and solar panels.
Get caught up in
Stories to keep you up to date
Prior to its latest mission, China had already successfully landed an unmanned spacecraft on the far side of the moon and brought back samples from the near side, but the Chang’e-6 mission combines the two.
The unmanned probe, Chang’e-6, was launched on May 2 and landed on the far side of the moon on June 2. Chinese officials said Thursday that the probe collected rocks and other materials near and around the impact crater known as the Apollo Basin, which is part of the South Pole-Aitken Basin and is the oldest, largest and deepest known crater on the moon.
Chang’e-6 landed by parachute in a designated desert area in Inner Mongolia at 2:07 pm local time on Tuesday, according to a live broadcast by Chinese state media. Technicians monitoring the landing were seen on video applauding.
The return craft was carrying approximately 4.4 pounds of lunar soil samples and was flown to Beijing for unpacking.
Bien invited researchers from around the world, including the United States, to apply for access to study the new samples.
The far side is the hemisphere of the Moon that always faces away from Earth. This hemisphere is also called the “dark side,” not because of a lack of light, but because scientists know so little about it.
The first samples from the far side of the moon are “very interesting” and “may tell a completely different geological story,” said Carsten Müncher, a geochemistry professor at the University of Cologne in Germany, which is requesting access to samples from China’s previous lunar missions.
The Chinese team went to “places that have never been explored before,” and “the American and Russian teams have all been close to the center,” Munker said.
Two of the samples will be stored permanently, while the rest will be distributed at a later date “to Chinese and foreign scientists in accordance with the lunar sample management regulations,” Wang Qiong, deputy chief designer of the Chang’e-6 mission, told China’s CRI News radio on Wednesday.
U.S. officials at NASA, the Department of Defense and Congress are concerned about China’s steady expansion into space exploration because China’s civilian space program has direct ties to the military and technology developed by the space agency could be used to improve its military capabilities.
Dual-use space technologies could help strengthen the country’s science and technology sector and modernize its military, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. China’s space advances could help the military develop missiles, lasers and robots that can be used in space combat, according to a 2023 report on the Chinese military.
But U.S. officials say that despite Beijing’s progress, the U.S. remains committed to its plan to return astronauts to the lunar surface before China.
“I’ve been very clear all this time that we’re in a space race with China, and China has been very good at it,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told The Washington Post in a recent interview. “Particularly in the last decade, China has been very successful. They usually say what they want to say, and they do what they say.”
The US and China rarely collaborate on space research, but after the Chang’e-5 mission returns to Earth in 2020, NASA is inviting scientists to apply for access to about four pounds of lunar soil and rocks collected by the mission.
Longstanding U.S. law bars NASA funds from being used for projects with China or Chinese companies without congressional approval due to concerns that sensitive U.S. data and technology could be transferred to China.
U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said he doesn’t think China is interested in collaborating with the U.S. on space research.
“I don’t think China has shown much interest in working with the United States on space issues,” Burns said at a Council on Foreign Relations event in December. “So it’s a contentious issue in some ways. It’s a contentious area, but we’re comfortable with the status quo.”
Even if US researchers had access to modern samples, it would be years before they could study them.
International researchers have waited three years to apply for access to samples from the previous mission, Chang’e-5, which landed and returned to Earth in 2020. Ten applicants were interviewed in April this year, but China has yet to announce its selections, five of whom are American.
Researchers say the samples collected by this mission may be “significantly different” from rocks retrieved from the near side of the moon by previous missions. Experts say material collected by Chang’e-6 from the far side is thought to be an older sample that could help explain the moon’s early history.
Kentaro Terada, a professor of planetary science at Osaka University, which also submitted samples from the previous Chinese probe, said it was “highly likely” that the far-side samples would contain records of the early Moon and hopefully elements from Earth billions of years ago that scientists were unable to find in previous near-side samples.
“I’m looking forward to seeing the isotopic differences between the far and near samples. [of] Apollo suggests that some of Earth’s early elements may have been carried by winds to the Moon and preserved in the lunar soil, Terada said.
French astrochemist Frederic Moynier, who applied to collect lunar samples for China on previous missions, said samples from the far side of the moon could be “game-changing”.
“Chang’e 6 will be very important in testing previous ideas about the moon by collecting samples from the far side of the moon,” Moynier said.
