Russia and China agree to build a joint lunar space station

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The leaders of the two countries’ respective space agencies signed a memorandum of understanding on behalf of their national governments.

“China and Russia will use their accumulated experience in space science, research and development, as well as the use of space equipment and space technology, to jointly develop a roadmap for the construction of an International Scientific Research Station on the Moon (ILRS),” China’s space agency said.

A statement from the Russian space agency Roscosmos said the two organizations intended to “ promote collaboration in the establishment of an open-access ILRS for all interested countries and international partners, with the aim of strengthening research collaboration and the exploration and use of space for peaceful purposes for the benefit of all humanity. “

According to Roscosmos’ statement, the lunar space station will be “a complex of experimental and research facilities” created on the lunar surface and / or in orbit around the moon. The facilities will be designed for a range of multidisciplinary research, including “test technologies with the possibility of long-term unmanned operation with the prospect of human presence on the moon.”

China and Russia will now work on a roadmap for designing, developing and operating the station, and plan “presenting it to the global space community,” Roscosmos said.

The two countries have also signed agreements to jointly create a data center for the exploration of the moon and deep space. They plan to collaborate in the future on the Chinese Chang’e-7 and Russia’s Luna 27 missions, both of which aim to investigate the moon’s south pole.

Only two countries have collected stones from the moon. For China, this is just the beginning
Russia was one of the founders of the International Space Station (ISS), in addition to the United States and other contributing countries and space agencies. The orbiting science laboratory celebrated its twentieth anniversary of continuous human habitation in November last year. To date, the ISS is still humanity’s only operational and permanently inhabited space station. However, unlike Russia, China is not involved in ISS initiatives, in part because of US federal law prohibiting cooperation with Beijing on space projects.
Russia is taking its space program back to the Soviet Union, which in 1957 became the first country to launch a satellite – Sputnik 1 – from Earth’s gravity hold.

In the midst of a Cold War space competition with the United States, in 1960 the Soviets sent the first living things into orbit and back again, including space dogs, Belka and Strelka. Then in 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin knocked the Americans into space.

In recent years, however, Russia has struggled to replicate the success of its early space program, with a series of setbacks, including failed probe launches against a backdrop of budget cuts and alleged corruption.

China was late for the space race – it didn’t send its first satellite into orbit until 1970, when the US had already landed an astronaut on the moon – but it has quickly caught up.

Backed by billions of dollars in government investment, China has rapidly accelerated its space program over the past decade by launching space laboratories and satellites into orbit.

In 2019, China was the first country to send an unmanned rover to the other side of the moon. In July 2020, China launched its first unmanned mission to Mars – the Tianwen-1 probe, which entered the red planet’s orbit in February this year. The next step is to land a rover on the surface, expected to arrive in May or June.

And in December 2020, China’s unmanned Chang’e mission returned lunar samples to Earth – making it just the third country to successfully collect rocks from the moon.

There are also plans to send astronauts to the moon by 2030. If this succeeds, China would only become the second country after the US to put a citizen on the moon.

CNN’s Anna Chernova contributed to this report.

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