China, Russia set to renew cooperation deal as space rivalry with US escalates
- They plan to build an international lunar research station, seen as a response to the US-led Artemis programme
- The two countries have been moving closer in space exploration and are also set to integrate their satellite networks, China’s BeiDou and Russia’s Glonass
Under the new deal, which is to come into effect in 2023 after the current agreement ends next year, the two sides plan to jointly build an international lunar research station by 2035.
Earlier this week, Wu Yanhua, deputy director of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), told state broadcaster CCTV that the country would carry out three further missions to the moon in the next 10 years, including the Chang’e 8 moon landing mission, which aims to set up a lunar research station by around 2027.
If achieved, that would establish the research base eight years before the deal with Russia proposes to do so.
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Chinese rover spots mysterious cube-shaped object on the moon
In addition, in 2022, ground-monitoring stations are to be placed in both China and Russia as they integrate their respective satellite networks, China’s BeiDou and Russia’s Glonass, Chinese nationalistic tabloid Global Times reported.
The plans were revealed at a time when China and Russia are moving closer in many areas, including space exploration. Respectively an established space power and a well-resourced latecomer, Russia and China have drawn up ambitious plans for missions that could compete with the US and its allies.
In March, the CNSA and its Russian counterpart Roscosmos agreed to develop the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), and in June, space officials from the two countries said they were in negotiations with international partners including the European Space Agency, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to join their exploratory endeavour.
The new China-Russia ILRS plan was widely seen as a response to the US-led Artemis programme, announced in 2019 and aimed at returning astronauts from the US and its allies to the moon, specifically the lunar south pole, by 2025.
US space agency Nasa has been barred from collaborating with China under the Wolf Amendment passed by the US Congress in 2011. Russia, at odds with the US on several issues, has said it will not join Nasa’s moon plans, which its director general Dmitry Rogozin has called “too US-centric”.
China is only the third country after the US and Russia to have flown people in orbit. In the latest milestone in Beijing’s space ambitions, three Chinese astronauts in September returned to Earth in a re-entry capsule after a three-month stay in Tiangong, the space station China is building.
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Chinese astronauts return to Earth in re-entry capsule from Tiangong space station
There has also been hostility in space between Russia and the US. Last month, the US accused Russia of “dangerous and irresponsible behaviour” after Moscow fired a missile at one of its own satellites, generating more than 1,500 pieces of trackable orbital debris that the US said “threaten the interests of all nations”.
Days later, Russia said it could take legal action against a Nasa astronaut, Serena Aunon-Chancellor, for drilling a small hole in its Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft in 2018.
