It became known when China will send its astronauts to the Moon

China plans to land astronauts on the moon by 2030, a government official has announced. Rumor has it that this is the next step in the space race between China and the United States, when the Asian autocracy plans to take the lead over democratic countries. By the way, the Americans want to return astronauts to the lunar surface 5 years sooner — by the end of 2025.

Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of the China Manned Space Agency, said that China is initially preparing for «a short stay on the Moon and joint exploration of the Earth’s satellite surface by humans and robots.»

«We have a full-fledged manned space station and a round-trip human transportation system. We have carefully selected, instructed and trained astronauts,» he said. According to Lin, two manned missions a year are «sufficient to fulfill China’s tasks.»

The Chinese space agency also introduced a new crew that will go to the Tiangong orbital space station on May 30 (the OKS is still under construction and will be completed in November). The mission will include Gui Haichao, a professor at the leading Beijing Aerospace Research Institute, Jing Haipeng, the mission commander, and Zhu Yanzhu, a spacecraft engineer and payload expert. All crew members served in the People’s Liberation Army, the military wing of the Chinese Communist Party.

The three astronauts will fly on the Shenzhou-16 spacecraft and will briefly collaborate with the three astronauts who lived at the Tiangong station for the previous six months. In turn, the taikonauts of the Shenzhou-15 mission, who have been in space since November last year, will return to Earth.

Space is increasingly seen as a new area of competition between China and the United States. It is already known that the astronauts NASA will send to the moon by the end of 2025 will target the south pole, where permanently shadowed craters are believed to be filled with frozen water.

Both China and the United States are also considering plans to establish permanent crew bases on the Moon. Currently, U.S. law severely restricts cooperation between the two countries' space programs. Although China says it welcomes foreign cooperation, it is currently limited to scientific research.