China's ambitious plans: lunar base in 10 years

It seems that China has seriously set out to become a space superpower. Euphoria has not yet passed from the January landing of the Yutu-2 spacecraft on the far side of the moon as part of the Chang'e-4 mission, as more ambitious plans were started in the Chinese National Space Administration.





According to local media reports citing reliable sources at CNSA, Beijing plans to organize a manned mission to our natural satellite and build a research station at the Moon’s South Pole in the next decade. The successful implementation of the aforementioned task will not only become a breakthrough in world cosmonautics, but also automatically make the Celestial Empire the unchallenged leader in the “space race”.

In addition, already this year the CNSA planned to launch the Chang'e-5 mission, which is designed to collect and deliver lunar soil samples to Earth. Further, in 2020, Beijing intends to send a Martian probe, as well as launch its new Long March-5B heavy missile. The latter should put into orbit the first elements of the future multi-module orbital station Tiangong, which, according to the plan, will start functioning in 2022 and will very likely “take the place” of the ISS (the term of operation will end in 2024).

An indirect confirmation of the "serious intentions" of the Celestial Empire is the financing of military and civilian space programs. Indeed, at the moment, China’s space budget is second only to the US.