Beijing. December 27. INTERFAX - China has approved the fourth stage of the lunar surface exploration program to prepare for the construction of a joint Russian-Chinese scientific station on the Moon, during which three missions will go to it, the deputy head of the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) said At Yanhua.
According to Yanhua, as part of the fourth stage of the PRC's Chang'e lunar exploration program, three missions will be sent to it over the next ten years.
"The main task of these three missions is to make China come forward (in the exploration of the Moon - IF). We are also preparing to cooperate with Russia in creating a basic model of a lunar research station in order to more effectively explore the lunar environment and the resources located on it, including ways of their peaceful use and development," the deputy head of CNSA said in an interview with China Central Television (CCTV).
According to the plan, the Chang'e-7 automatic interplanetary station will first go to the South Pole of the Moon, where a joint Russian-Chinese station is planned to be created in the future, then the Chang'e-6 probe will be sent, since, unlike Chang'e-7, it is able to return to Earth independently after taking soil samples collected by the 7th mission. The Chang'e-8 mission will be the last to go as part of the fourth stage, within which the basic model of the lunar station will be deployed on the Moon.
The PRC's lunar surface exploration program was launched in the fall of 2007.
At the first stage of the program, the Chang'e-1 probe was sent to the Moon, which for two years collected data on the Earth's natural satellite while in its orbit. As a result of the mission, China received more than one terabyte of data, including images of the surface with a resolution of seven meters. Launched in 2010, Chang'e-2 supplemented the data collected by its predecessor, allowing China to create a topographic map of the Moon based on them.
During the second stage of the program, two rovers were delivered to the Moon for data collection - "Yutu-1" (in 2013) and "Yutu-2" (in 2019), thereby making China the third country in the history of cosmonautics to carry out a soft landing of a lunar rover on the lunar surface.
The third stage of the program started in 2020. The Chang'e-5 probe was sent to the Moon, which, after making a soft landing on its surface, collected a soil sample and independently returned to Earth to transfer the material to research centers in China.
On March 9, Roscosmos reported that Russia and China signed a memorandum on the establishment of an international scientific lunar station.
