As Artemis II nears home, US-China lunar race speeds up
America is moonstruck once more.
With Artemis II and its four crewmembers returning to Earth after a record-breaking, and visually spectacular, trip around the moon, the U.S. love affair with lunar exploration has been renewed. The air in mission-control rooms tends to feel different on days like this—less like a countdown, more like everyone exhaling at once.
Something else from that era may have been renewed as well. In the punch-counterpunch style of the 1960s, a rival nation’s response to Artemis could be coming in a matter of months. In the second half of this year, the China National Space Administration is scheduled to launch Chang’e 7, an uncrewed mission that—if successful—would be the nation’s second successful landing on the lunar south pole. (In 2023, India became the first nation to land in the resource-rich region.)
Why the attention now? Because both countries appear to be angling for more than science or flags. Scientific research and national pride are certainly in play, but so are potentially lucrative plans tied to resources on the moon. NASA will hope to one-up the Chinese again in 2028, when it plans to return humans to the lunar surface on Artemis IV.
Experts say it has all the hallmarks of a space race—there’s urgency, there’s competition, there’s a whole lot of national symbolism—but it differs from America’s contest with the Soviet Union in the 1950s and ’60s. Among the key changes: both China and the United States want to not just return to the lunar surface, but establish a permanent presence there. And unlike the Cold War era, there are more than two players in the space business. Slow and steady progress over two decades has China with its nose in front right now, according to experts.
But the U.S. has been adjusting its posture. With NASA last month announcing a new plan to build a moon base in the early 2030s, the U.S. has the capability—and renewed focus—to take the lead in lunar exploration once more. Both countries have ambitious goals, and with human operations on the moon unprecedented and difficult, this race is likely to last over a decade. If the first space race was a rocket-fueled roller coaster, this one might be closer to the Iditarod.
“If the finish line is the moon becoming a site of regular, sustained human activity, we’re still fairly early in that race,” says David Burbach, director of the Space Studies Group at the U.S. Naval War College, speaking in his personal capacity.
China’s lunar momentum is rooted in years of incremental wins. In 1970, China launched its first satellite into orbit. It would be 30 years before the Chinese government began even researching a mission to the moon. Then, in 2007, the Chang’e 1 probe launched to the moon. The China National Space Administration has since performed five other Chang’e missions—and they have all been successful. They delivered two rovers to the lunar surface, Yutu 1 and Yutu 2. The second rover is still operating after its arrival with Chang’e 4 in January 2019.
The program has also hit milestones with astronauts, or taikonauts, who have routinely set new markers. Their first manned flight in space came in 2003, and in 2008 the first spacewalk. The agency’s Tiangong space station has been operational since 2022. Dr. Burbach says the agency doesn’t share much information, but it appears to have avoided major setbacks or failures.
China has now put forward plans to build a permanent base on the lunar south pole—believed to be rich in water ice, a resource chemically different from ice on Earth that could be used to make propellant and support human inhabitants. In 2021, the China National Space Administration signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Roscosmos, pledging to jointly build the International Lunar Research Station, described as a “comprehensive scientific experiment base with the capability of long-term autonomous operation,” and “open to all interested countries and international partners.” At least 12 countries have reportedly partnered on the project, including Venezuela, Egypt, and Pakistan. India, meanwhile, aims to land its own crewed mission to the moon by 2040 and has signed an agreement with Japan to explore the lunar south pole.
Still, China’s approach isn’t just about engineering. Experts note one significant advantage over the U.S.: the country’s slow and steady progress is aided by an autocratic government that can fund the lunar program as it sees fit without having to worry about public opinion or a change in administration. Victoria Samson, chief director for Space Security and Stability at the Secure World Foundation, says, “Our [timeline] keeps shifting to the right, whereas China’s has more or less stayed at 2030.”
On the U.S. side, the shift is unmistakable. In late March, NASA announced it was accelerating its lunar exploration program. For decades, the moon had been an afterthought in U.S. spaceflight as the space shuttle program and the International Space Station took center stage, and presidential priorities swung back and forth—Bush-era moon talk, Obama’s Mars focus, Trump’s Artemis launch. But with a race against China likely to focus minds and open purse strings in Congress, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the “clock is running” and that success or failure will be measured in months, not years.
The changes are dramatic. The agency paused work on Lunar Gateway, narrowed Artemis III to 2027 instead of 2028, and set Artemis IV to land humans on the moon in 2028. Overall, NASA wants to increase its launch cadence from one launch every three years to one launch every 10 months. The new, $20 billion plan hopes to establish a permanent human presence on the moon by the 2030s.
All of this, experts say, points to a longer struggle than either side can finish quickly. It’s ultimately about who can build a moon base first—who gets to control access to the lunar surface and lunar resources. Norbert Schorghofer, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, puts it bluntly: whoever controls access “will for all practical purposes own the moon.”
Then there’s the part everyone likes to talk about less: the rules. Both the U.S. and China are signatories to the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which says no nation can own a planetary body, but how that agreement would be enforced is unclear. Private companies trying to establish operations on the moon adds another layer of complication.
NASA sees the Artemis Accords—developed with the State Department in 2020—as a key effort to establish “a common set of principles” for the latest era of space exploration. The document explicitly permits the mining of celestial bodies and outlines standards for resource extraction, space debris, and the sharing of scientific data. Sixty-one nations have signed on to the agreement as of January, with two notable exceptions: China and Russia.
But even with all those plans, the road ahead is still long. If the U.S. and China are engaged in a metaphorical space marathon, experts say, they’re both currently in the first mile. That’s a lifetime in geopolitics, and in the harsh environment of the moon, the two countries may face bigger problems than each other.
“If nothing else, the moon is a very challenging environment to keep people alive in,” Samson says. “China will be following the same laws of thermodynamics on the moon as us,” she adds. “So there’s no reason they shouldn’t want to coordinate with us on lunar missions.”
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