Planned Sino-Russian joint moon base aims to overtake the US in reaping lunar strategic benefits
By GABRIEL HONRADA
China and Russia plan to set up a joint moon base by 2027, eight years earlier than originally planned. The joint moon base, called the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), will be a complex of experimental research facilities designed for multiple scientific activities, such as moon exploration, moon-based observation, research experiments and technology verification.
China is planning to launch the Chang’e 8 lunar exploration mission as the first step in establishing the ILRS. The mission is expected to test technology for using local resources and manufacturing with 3D printing.
Presently, China’s lunar presence includes the Chang’e 4 lander and the Yutu 2 rover, whose arrival in 2019 marked humanity’s first landings on the dark side of the moon. Both lunar craft are performing scientific experiments, with Chang’e 4 conducting a lunar biosphere experiment to see how silkworms, potatoes and Arabidopsis (a small flowering plant) seeds grow in lunar gravity, while the Yutu 2 rover is exploring the Von Kármán crater.
China and Russia’s joint moon base plans can be seen as a response to their exclusion from the US Artemis Accords, which aims to establish principles, guidelines and best practices for space exploration for the US and its partners. Its goal is to advance the Artemis Program, the name for US efforts to place itself as the first nation to establish a long-term lunar presence.
China is barred from participating in joint projects with the US in space by the Wolf Amendment, a 2011 measure prohibiting NASA from cooperating with China without special approval from Congress.
As a result, China is forced to be self-reliant in its space program. Illustrating this is the fact that China is barred from joining the International Space Station (ISS), but it is in the process of building its own Tiangong space station, which it plans to finish by the end of 2022.
China plans to use the Tiangong space station to host experiments with partner countries and to keep it continuously inhabited by three astronauts for at least a decade.
Russia has refused to sign the Artemis Accords, stating that it is too US-centric in its current form. Despite Russia’s refusal to sign the Artemis Accords, Russia-US space cooperation remains one of the few areas of constructive engagement between the two countries.
One of Russia’s significant contributions to the ISS is the Zvezda service module, which provides station living quarters, life support systems, electrical power distribution, data processing systems, flight control systems and propulsion systems.
It also provides a docking port for Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft. Despite this cooperation, Russia has threatened to pull out of the ISS in 2025 unless the US lifts sanctions on Russia’s space sector.
However, Sino-Russian space cooperation has its own set of challenges. In terms of political will, it is possible that either China or Russia can miss timelines or suspend cooperation, due to competing political priorities, limited resources or leadership changes.
Russia may also be loath to play the role of junior partner to China, given its proud history of space exploration. Also, other governments may be skeptical about the viability of Sino-Russian space cooperation, and view cooperation with the US as the more desirable option.
The race to establish a long-term lunar presence is driven by political, economic and military factors. Political and ideological rivalry between China, Russia and the US may be fuelling the race to establish a long-term lunar base to showcase each other’s technological superiority.
When it comes to economic benefits, the moon is believed to have significant reserves of silicon, rare earth metals, titanium, aluminum, water, precious metals and Helium-3. Also, the technologies developed for a long-term lunar presence may eventually find regular commercial use.
In addition, the moon can potentially be militarized by states protecting their lunar commercial interests, deploying anti-satellite or anti-spacecraft weapons, or using the moon as a gravitational point to deploy military satellites or spacecraft in a manner that would be undetectable with conventional space tracking.
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"China has formally approved three missions targeting the south pole of the moon, with the first to launch around 2024. each with different goals and an array of spacecraft.
"The trio make up the so-called fourth phase for the Chinese lunar exploration programme, which most recently landed on the moon last December with a sample-return mission dubbed Chang'e 5.
Wu Yanhua, deputy head of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), told China Central Television (CCTV) in a recent interview that the three missions had been approved.
Chang'e 7 will be the first to launch; Wu did not provide a timeline, but previous reporting indicates a hoped-for launch around 2024, with the mission to include an orbiter, a relay satellite, a lander, a rover and a "mini flying craft" designed to seek out evidence of ice at the lunar south pole.
The various component spacecraft will carry a range of science instruments including cameras, a radar instrument, an infrared spectrum mineral imager, a thermometer, a seismograph and a water-molecule analyser; the mission will tackle goals including remote sensing, identifying resources and conducting a comprehensive study of the lunar environment.
Chang'e 8 will launch later this decade and will be a step toward establishing a joint International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) with Russia and potentially other partners.
The mission is expected to test technology for using local resources and manufacturing with 3D printing, according to earlier Chinese press statements.
The ILRS plan includes development of a robotic base which can be later expanded to allow astronauts to make long-term stays on the lunar surface in the 2030s.
China had previously scheduled their lunar research station for the year 2035, reports the South China Morning Post. The newspaper cites concerns from Zhang Chongfeng, deputy chief designer of China's manned space programme, that America's space programme might ultimately seize common land on the moon.
The US government and Nasa have proposed the Artemis Accords to set rules for future lunar activities. Already signed by more than a dozen US allies, the accords allow governments or private companies to protect their facilities or "heritage sites" by setting up safety zones that forbid the entry of others.
China and Russia are opposed to the accords because this challenges the existing international protocols including the UN's Moon Agreement, which states that the moon belongs to the entire human race, not a certain country, according to Zhang.
But to effectively counter the US on the moon, China would have to "take some forward-looking measures and deploy them ahead of schedule", he said in a paper published in domestic peer-reviewed journal Aerospace Shanghai in June.
Instead of building an orbiting "gateway", China would directly put a nuclear-powered research station on the moon. The unmanned facility would allow visiting Chinese astronauts to stay on the moon for as long as their American peers but only at a fraction of the cost.
To counter the US territorial claims, China would also deploy a mobile station. This moon base on wheels would be able to roam freely on the lunar surface for over 1,000km, and the use of artificial intelligence technology would mean astronauts need not be present for its operation.
China would pay a great deal of attention to the exploration of caves, which could provide a natural shelter for the construction of permanent settlements.
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