China launches moon mission in base race with US

The rocket carrying the Chang’e 6 mission lunar probe at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in southern China. HECTOR RETAMAL/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
The rocket carrying the Chang’e 6 mission lunar probe at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in southern China. HECTOR RETAMAL/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Summary

The Chinese mission has been hailed for its potential for a scientific breakthrough, but the U.S. is closely watching the expedition with trepidation.

SINGAPORE—Across China and among the global scientific community, Friday’s launch of a Chinese mission to collect samples from the moon’s far side has been hailed for its potential for a scientific breakthrough.

But in the U.S., lawmakers and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are closely watching the expedition with trepidation: as a milestone in a rival’s campaign to build a base on the moon’s most strategic location.

The latest frontier of the U.S.-China technological Cold War orbits 240,000 miles above us. Though lacking the specter of nuclear war from the U.S.-Soviet space race six decades ago, this new rivalry puts this century’s superpowers on track to spar over lunar real estate, extraterrestrial weaponry and national pride.

The lunar territory that both countries covet is the south pole. It contains resources that could sustain a crewed base, so supplies wouldn’t have to be schlepped in from Earth. It has ice, which can be turned into water and oxygen for humans, and into hydrogen for rocket fuel. Some south-pole regions enjoy round-the-clock sunlight, a potential source of solar power.

“My concern is if China got there first and suddenly said, ‘OK, this is our territory. You stay out,’" NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told a congressional hearing last month. Nelson said China’s aggressive territorial claims in the South China Sea offer a clue as to how Beijing would handle a potential lunar dispute.

A crater near the south pole is the destination of the 53-day mission that lifted off from the Wenchang Space Launch Site in southern China on Friday afternoon local time. It is aiming to do something no country has done before: collect samples from the moon’s far side and bring them to Earth. Scientists hope they can help answer longstanding questions about the origins of the moon, Earth and solar system.

China started its lunar-exploration program in 2004, naming it after the Chinese moon goddess, Chang’e. The program has steadily hit milestones. In 2019, China achieved humanity’s first soft landing on the moon’s far side with Chang’e 4. A year later, Chang’e 5 collected soil samples from the moon’s near side.

“What is astounding to me is they’re almost meeting all their stated timelines," said Namrata Goswami, a professor at Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management who focuses on space policy.

The current Chang’e 6 mission essentially combines the previous two missions. The challenge is location. The moon rotates in such a way that the same side always faces Earth. Maintaining communications with a spacecraft on the far side requires China to set up a relay satellite that orbits the moon.

The success of this mission will determine whether China can hit its goal of putting astronauts on the moon by the end of this decade. Sample-return missions follow the “exact same steps that any human mission to the moon will go through," said James Head III, a Brown University professor who worked on NASA’s Apollo program and collaborated with Chinese scientists on studying Chang’e 6 landing zone. “There’s a lot of practicing going on here."

The missions are slowly building toward China’s goal of building a permanent base on the moon’s south pole, called the International Lunar Research Station, in collaboration with Russia by 2035.

NASA hopes to have a permanent presence on the moon before then. A plan for its Artemis program, published in 2020, was to establish an Artemis Base Camp on the south pole after American astronauts returned to the moon’s surface. But a crewed mission to the lunar surface, originally scheduled for 2025, has been delayed to at least September 2026 because of challenges with the spacecraft’s heat shield, among other issues.

NASA envisions using the moon as a steppingstone for crewed missions to Mars, using the moon’s surface as practice for red-planet missions and perhaps lunar ice for fuel.

Besides worrying that China could try to block other nations from accessing the south pole, Nelson said that China’s space program, despite a stated civilian mission, appeared to harbor military aims. “In effect, we are in a race," said Nelson, who was a Democratic senator before he ran NASA."

A moon base could help a government disable enemy satellites, for example, said Goswami, the professor.

NASA and Chinese officials didn’t respond to requests for comment for this article. China’s Foreign Ministry has previously said that China opposes the weaponization of space, while accusing the U.S. of threatening its peaceful use.

Some Washington lawmakers are monitoring the current Chang’e 6 mission. In a congressional hearing with Nelson earlier this week, Rep. Frank Lucas (R., Okla.), chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, cited the mission as an example of challenges that NASA faces.

“To maintain U.S. leadership in space, we must pay close attention to China’s space exploration efforts," Lucas said in a statement. “There are too many consequences for our competitiveness, our national security and our continued ability to explore space at stake."

Write to Stu Woo at Stu.Woo@wsj.com and Clarence Leong at clarence.leong@wsj.com

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