The competition to return to the Moon and establish a manned base is now without a clear leader. While China is making steady progress in its lunar program, NASA is encountering technical and budgetary challenges with its ambitious Artemis missions. The U.S. first landed on the Moon 50 years ago, so it’s important for the country not to suffer a symbolic defeat against its major rival.
China’s Rapid Advances Toward the Moon
The China-NASA space race began in 2011 when the U.S. Congress passed the Wolf Amendment, which prohibits U.S. federal agencies like NASA from collaborating with Chinese entities. Lawmakers designed this amendment to prevent the transfer of sensitive technologies that could have military applications. As a result, China was unable to participate in the International Space Station and has since developed Tiangong, its own permanently inhabited space station.
At the same time, the Asian country has achieved significant milestones in its lunar program, including landing on the far side of the Moon in 2019 and retrieving lunar soil samples with the Chang’e-5 mission in 2020. In June 2024, the Chang’e-6 mission successfully brought back samples from the hidden face of the Moon.
These accomplishments are remarkable, given the rapid technological advancements in rockets, probes, and lunar rovers. However, while China has made impressive progress in lunar exploration, the U.S. remains the only country to have landed humans on the Moon. What’s more, it’s planning to return to the lunar surface with the Artemis III mission scheduled for September 2026.
Recently, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) revealed the design of its lunar spacesuit. Similar to the suit Axiom is developing for NASA, the Chinese spacesuit is designed to protect astronauts from radiation and the harsh lunar environment. It features materials capable of withstanding the thermal conditions and abrasive dust on the Moon.
The lunar suit is white with red stripes and incorporates Chinese cultural elements. It’s equipped with a multifunctional control panel, cameras for recording close-ups and remote scenes, and a panoramic anti-glare visor. During a live broadcast, astronauts Zhai Zhigang and Wang Yaping demonstrated that the suit’s joints facilitate mobility on the lunar surface as they walked, crouched, and climbed stairs.
While the initial flights are relatively simple compared to NASA’s Artemis missions, China’s plans for the Moon are just as ambitious. They’re focused on the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) project, a scientific base at the satellite’s south pole where other countries like Russia will participate.
The base is expected to house 5,000 scientists from around the world by 2035. The ILRS will serve as a platform for scientific research, technology development, and commercial industries like space mining. It’ll also be a springboard for future manned missions to Mars.
NASA’s Challenges with the Artemis Program
NASA’s Artemis program aims to establish a sustainable lunar station with the collaboration of several countries. Similar to the Chinese lunar program, Artemis will initially focus on round trips to the Moon, with the ultimate goal of sending the first woman to the lunar surface.
However, the Artemis roadmap has experienced delays, and this trend may continue. Artemis II, scheduled for September 2025, will mark the first manned flight aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft, launched by the space agency’s SLS rocket. Three U.S. astronauts and one Canadian astronaut will orbit the Moon in a free-return trajectory and return to Earth with the assistance of the satellite’s gravity.
Artemis III, scheduled for September 2026, will involve four astronauts docking in lunar orbit with a SpaceX Starship. Two astronauts will remain on the Orion while the other two, including a woman, will descend to the Moon’s surface using the Starship. A week later, Starship will return to lunar orbit, and the astronauts will return to Earth aboard the Orion spacecraft.
NASA has encountered some problems in recent months in its efforts to advance space exploration. These issues include failures detected on the Orion spacecraft following its first unmanned flight around the Moon as part of the Artemis I mission. Other problems, including heat shield damage, melted screws, and electrical system anomalies, have also arisen.
Of particular concern is the heat shield of the spacecraft. NASA found more than 100 areas where the protective material has broken off, leaving holes. Engineers have designed this heat shield, which is the largest ever built for a space capsule, to withstand temperatures of up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Efforts are underway to investigate the causes of these issues. As a result, NASA is considering potential modifications to the shield design or reentry trajectory, which could potentially lead to further flight delays.
The SLS rocket, developed by Boeing, has also faced challenges that could present a potential obstacle to the future of the Artemis program. While the rocket performed as planned, it’s been plagued by significant cost overruns. The development of the SLS rocket is estimated to have cost around $17 billion, with each expendable rocket launch costing about $4.1 billion.
The SLS rocket has also faced cost overruns in building the ML-2 mobile launch tower, which will be essential for the launch of a more powerful version of the rocket, the SLS Block 1B, during the Artemis IV and later missions. Originally, NASA paid $383 million to Bechtel Company to construct ML-2 with a delivery date of March 2023. However, costs have now increased to $2.7 billion, to be covered by NASA, and the delivery date has been delayed to at least September 2027.
These challenges can be attributed to the complex architecture of the Artemis program. The Orion spacecraft, derived from the Constellation program, was originally designed for six crew members. With a bulky shield, all this makes it larger and heavier than necessary. Additionally, Orion utilizes a service module based on the European ATV spacecraft, which was developed by the European Space Agency for the Constellation program.
The SLS rocket, originating from the canceled Constellation program, is one of the most expensive components of the program, despite reusing Space Shuttle parts. This has led to questions about why NASA doesn’t use SpaceX’s Starship directly. However, Starship itself has raised many questions within the Artemis program.
The development of Starship is progressing quickly, if not faster, than any other SpaceX program. However, the company is currently facing challenges with the Federal Aviation Administration and is struggling to increase the rocket’s launch frequency to meet its commitments to NASA. SpaceX must land an unmanned Starship on the Moon next year for the Artemis III mission to take place in 2026.
There’s little doubt that Starship will succeed, especially after the nearly flawless Flight 4. However, the complexity of the Artemis III mission poses a challenge. It requires the launch of multiple Starship tankers (between eight and 16) to transfer propellants in orbit to compensate for the evaporation of methane and liquid oxygen at cryogenic temperatures from the spacecraft’s tanks. Moreover, Starship is a massive rocket (more than 160 feet tall) designed to land upright.
The height of the Starship rocket means that the two crew members will have to descend about 130 feet by elevator to reach the surface of the Moon. While its large size offers numerous advantages for future lunar bases, it currently complicates NASA’s ability to land on the Moon and to do so with enough fuel to launch into orbit. Additionally, there are challenges with docking Starship with the Orion spacecraft, which hasn’t yet undergone flight testing.
Bottom Line
The combination of technical problems and cost overruns has put NASA in a challenging position. This will likely lead to further delays in the Artemis missions. It could also result in changes to the architecture of Artemis III, potentially excluding a lunar landing. Meanwhile, China is consistently making progress on its lunar goals with a simpler, more focused strategy.
Delegating key components of the program to the private sector worked with Crew Dragon and flights to the ISS. However, NASA has found that relying on commercial companies like SpaceX for the lander and Axiom for the spacesuits has its challenges. This is the case especially when compared to the traditional agency-bid contractor approach seen with SLS and Orion.
Artemis III is scheduled for 2026, while the Chinese lunar lander is set for 2030. However, the possibility of China putting its astronauts on the Moon before NASA is becoming more plausible. The 21st-century space race isn’t just a matter of national prestige but has significant geopolitical and economic implications similar to the 20th-century competition.
In the end, many see the Moon as only a prelude to the ultimate goal of reaching Mars.
Image | CSNA | NASA
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