China Unveils Their Plan for a Crewed Moon Landing

What happened

Yesterday, on November 3rd, the deputy chief designer of China's crewed space program and chief designer of the lunar exploration program (Wang Xiang) unveiled an official statement detailing its [plans for a crewed mission to the Moon](https://english.spacechina.com/n17212/c4744561/content.html).

Under the proposed architecture, China will conduct two launches using the Long March 10 rocket, sending the Lanyue lunar lander and the Mengzhou crewed spaceship to the Moon, where they will rendezvous in orbit. The CMSE unveiled the lander design to the world in September 2023 and officially named it Lanyue ("embracing the Moon") in early 2024.

Since then, development of the Long March 10, Mengzhou spacecraft, and Lanyue lander has proceeded apace and reached several key milestones. This included a tethered test of the lander last year, which successfully simulated descent, guidance, control, and engine shutdown.

The plans were outlined in a keynote speech Wang delivered at the 7th Manned Space Symposium , held. This year's theme was "Gathering Wisdom for the Galaxy: Digital and Intelligent Empowerment for High-Quality Development of Manned Spaceflight," and saw more than 800 experts and scholars from fields related to crewed spaceflight convene to discuss strategies, technologies, and the hurdles China's space program will face.

These plans echo the preliminary plan statements made at the 9th China (International) Commercial Aerospace Forum in July 2023.