China National Space Agency Archives

September 7, 2024September 7, 2024 by Nancy Atkinson

China Will Launch its Mars Sample Return Mission in 2028

The launch of the Tianwen-1 mission, Wenchang City, south China's Hainan Province, July 23, 2020. /CFP

While NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission has experienced a setback, China is still moving forward with their plans to bring home a piece of the Red Planet. This week, officials from the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced their sample return mission, called Tianwen-3, will blast off for Mars in 2028. It will land on the surface, retrieve a sample, and then take off again, docking with a return vehicle in orbit. They also announced another mission, Tianwen-4 will head off to Jupiter in 2030 as well as unveiling a conceptual plan for China’s first mission to test defenses against a near-Earth asteroid.

The announcements were made this week at the second International Deep Space Exploration Conference, also known as the Tiandu Forum, held in China. China says the conference promotes international cooperation for future large-scale missions.

May 7, 2023May 7, 2023 by Matt Williams

China's Mars Rover Finds Recent Evidence of Water Near the Equator

China's Zhurong rover on Mars — An image from China's Zhurong rover shows spacecraft hardware in the foreground and Martian terrain in the background. (Credit: CNSA)

The surface of Mars is a pretty desolate place at first glance. The soil is many times as dry as the driest desert on planet Earth, the temperatures swing from one extreme to the other, and the air is incredibly thin and toxic. And yet, there’s ample evidence that the planet was once much warmer and wetter, with lots of flowing and standing water on its surface. Over time, as Mars’ atmosphere was slowly stripped away, much of this water was lost to space, and what remains is largely concentrated around the poles as glacial ice and permafrost.

For years, space agencies have been sending robotic landers, rovers, orbiters, and aerial vehicles to Mars to learn more about when this transition took and how long it took. According to China’s Tianwen-1 mission, which includes the Zhurong rover, there may have been liquid water on the Martian surface later than previously thought. According to new research from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the Zhurong rover observed salt-rich dunes in the Utopia Planitia region that showed cracks and crusts, indicating the possible presence of water as recently as a few hundred thousand years ago.

March 29, 2023August 25, 2023 by Matt Williams

China Hints at its Goals for a Lunar Base

Visualization of the ILRS, from the CNSA Guide to Partnership (June 2021). Credit: CNSA

In June 2021, China announced it was partnering with Russia to launch a lunar exploration program that would rival NASA’s Artemis Program. This program would include robotic landers, orbiters, and crewed missions that would culminate with the creation of an outpost around the Moon’s southern polar region – the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). While the details are still scant, periodic updates have provided a “big-picture” idea of what this lunar outpost will look like.

Case in point, at a recent national space conference, a team of scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) presented a list of objectives for the ILRS. According to China Science Daily, these objectives will include Moon-based astronomy, Earth observation, and lunar in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). In addition, the CAS scientists indicated that China plans to establish a basic model for a lunar research station based on two planned exploration missions by 2028, which will subsequently expand into an international base.

May 18, 2022May 18, 2022 by Matt Williams

China has a new Human Lunar Space Program, With Plans for Landers, Orbiters, Rovers, and a Lunar Base

The China National Space Agency (CNSA) has advanced considerably since the turn of the century, boasting new launch vehicles, robotic missions to the Moon and Mars, and a modular space station in orbit (Tiangong). According to various sources, they plan to advance even further in the coming years and decades. Given the tight-lipped nature of the Chinese government and its agencies, much of what we periodically hear is based on snippets of information, gossip, and speculation.

However, in a recent interview with the state-owned CCTV new network, chief designer Huang Zhen confirmed that China’s space agency has established the Crewed Lunar Program Office. This program will consist of additional robotic missions to explore the Moon, followed by crewed missions and the creation of a base camp. Zhen also confirmed that he and his team at the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) are currently developing the key technologies that will make this happen.

January 7, 2022January 7, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

China’s Rover Checks out that Weird Cube on the Moon. Surprise! It’s a Rock.

The view of the mystery rock on the edge of the crater from a short distance, as seen by the Yutu lunar rover. Credit: CNSA.

Back in early December 2021, China’s Yutu 2 rover made headlines when it spied what looked like a curious cube-shaped object on the Moon’s surface. Of course, speculations ran rampant. And it didn’t help matters any when the China National Space Administration (CNSA) nicknamed the object the “mystery hut.”

An update today from Yutu’s cameras reveals the true nature of this object. Yup, it’s just a rock. And not very cube-shaped, either.

July 18, 2021July 18, 2021 by Matt Williams

New Images of Mars From China’s Rover

On May 14^th, 2021, the China National Space Agency (CNSA) achieved another major milestone when the Tianwen-1 lander successfully soft-landed on Mars, making China the second nation in the world to land a mission on Mars and establish communications from the surface. Shortly thereafter, China National Space Agency (CNSA) shared the first images taken by the Tianwen-1 lander.

By May 22^nd, 2021, the Zhurong rover descended from its lander and drove on the Martian surface for the first time. Since then, the rover has spent 63 Earth days conducting science operations on the surface of Mars and has traveled over 450 meters (1475 feet). On Friday, July 9th, and again on July 15th, the CNSA released new images of the Red Planet that were taken by the rover as it made its way across the surface.

June 26, 2021June 26, 2021 by Matt Williams

The First Chinese Crew is Busy on their New Space Station

On Thursday, June 17th, China took another major step in its ongoing drive to become a superpower in space. Just two months after the core module of the Tiangong space station (literally, “Heavenly Palace”) was sent to orbit, the three astronauts that will be the station’s first crew launched to space. The mission, Shenzhou 12, lifted off atop a Long March-2F rocket at 09:22 p.m. on Wednesday evening local time (09:22 a.m. EDT; 06:22 a.m. PDT) from the Jiuquan launch center in the Gobi desert.

November 30, 2019December 9, 2019 by Matt Williams

There’s Now an Operational Radio Telescope on the Far Side of the Moon

Diagram of the Chang'e-4s mission architecture. Credit: Planetary Society/CSNA-LESEC

The Chang’e-4 mission, the fourth installment in the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, has made some significant achievements since it launched in December of 2018. In January of 2019, the mission lander and its Yutu 2 (Jade Rabbit 2) rover became the first robotic explorers to achieve a soft landing on the far side of the Moon. Around the same time, it became the first mission to grow plants on the Moon (with mixed results).

In the latest development, the Netherlands-China Low Frequency Explorer (NCLE) commenced operations after a year of orbiting the Moon. This instrument was mounted on the Queqiao communications satellite and consists of three 5-meter (16.4 ft) long monopole antennas that are sensitive to radio frequencies in the 80 kHz – 80 MHz range. With this instrument now active, Chang’e-4 has now entered into the next phase of its mission.