China National Space Administration/Xinhua/AP China and Russia have announced plans to work together to construct a lunar research station, an ambitious first-ever such space project between the two countries.
Russia’s Roscosmos and China’s National Space Administration – the two countries’ respective equivalents of NASA – announced a preliminary agreement on Tuesday to jointly develop the research facility, known as the International Lunar Research Station, or ILRS. The heads of the two space agencies signed a memorandum of understanding in a ceremony conducted via teleconference.
The proposed station, which once complete would be open to use by other countries, “is a comprehensive scientific experiment base with the capability of long-term autonomous operation,” according to a statement released by China’s space agency.
The station will be “built on the lunar surface and/or on the lunar orbit,” the statement said, and will carry out activities such as “lunar exploration and utilization, lunar-based observation, basic scientific experiment and technical verification.”
In a similar but separate statement, Roscosmos said Russia and China “will jointly develop a Roadmap for the creation” of the station, and “conduct close interaction in planning, justification, design, development, implementation, [and] operation [of] the project … including its presentation to the world space community.”
The announcement from the former Cold War rivals comes as NASA is working toward a return to the moon, decades after the last of the Apollo landings wrapped up in 1972. A planned U.S. space station in lunar orbit, known as Gateway, is considered a crucial part of the overall back-to-the-moon program, known as Artemis, which also envisions a base on the lunar surface.
The joint China-Russia proposal doesn’t include a timeline. NASA’s current estimate for Artemis – a program pushed by the Trump administration — would have “the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024,” though some space policy experts have said they expect that target date to slip under President Biden.