China wants to hunt for water on Moon’s South Pole. Now the mission may have to wait until 2027

The much-anticipated launch of China's Chang'e 7 lunar mission was delayed on Sunday due to bad weather conditions. The new launch date has yet to be announced.

The mission is part of China's efforts to land a crew on the Moon by 2030. The delay came less than two weeks after a rare launch failure. The Chang'e-7 spacecraft was originally set to lift off from the Wenchang Space Launch Site on China's southern Hainan island.

In a brief statement, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said Sunday, “China's Chang'e-7 lunar probe does not meet launch conditions, and its launch therefore cannot take place during the planned window this year.”

“The assessment was conducted following the principle of prudence, reliability and absolute mission success,” the agency said, as per People's Daily report.

According to reports, the growth of Tropical Depression Narra in the Gulf of Tonkin prompted China's space agency to delay the liftoff of Chang'e 7 significantly — possibly until 2027.

About China's Chang'e-7 lunar mission

The Chang'e-7 lunar mission — meant to search for water on the moon's south pole — was scheduled to depart either over the weekend or Monday, according to media reports.

The Chang'e-7 lunar probe and the Long March-5 Y14 carrier rocket had arrived at the launch site in April and July, respectively, and have since completed assembly and testing, Global Times reported.

The mission, which won't be launched this year, aims to achieve breakthroughs in multiple key technologies, such as high-precision soft landing on the lunar surface, legged locomotion, hopping and exploration of permanently shadowed craters.

According to China Daily, the Chang'e 7 is set to become China's seventh robotic mission to the moon, tasked mainly with searching for traces of water on the lunar surface.

Beijing has ploughed billions of dollars into its space programme in recent years to achieve what President Xi Jinping calls the country's "space dream".

China successfully landed a reusable rocket for the first time in July, according to its space agency, marking a major step in its space ambitions and in reducing launch costs.

The country is aiming to land astronauts on the Moon before 2030, a race in which the United States is also competing with its Artemis programme.

To date, China has conducted six robotic missions to explore the moon. The most recent, a 53-day Chang'e 6 mission, took place in the summer of 2024, marking the world's first attempt to return samples from the moon's far side.

The historic mission successfully retrieved a total of 1,935.3 grams of samples from the far side, local media reported.

Chang'e refers to a Chinese moon goddess.

Rare failure

The Chang'e-7 delay came just under two weeks after media reports showed a rocket launched from the Hainan site had exploded, as crowds watched a fiery ball in the sky.

The failed mission involved a Long March 7A carrier rocket, which had lifted off from the Wenchang Space Launch Site, state news agency Xinhua said at the time.

An "anomaly" occurred when the rocket carrying the Zhongxing-4B communications satellite was in flight, Xinhua added.

The cause of the failure was under investigation, it said.