China is developing a reusable spacecraft for the flight to the moon

Over the past couple of months, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of news about the interest of various private and public organizations on the flight to the moon. For example, the SpaceX head Ilon Musk is going to send people to the Moon. We are talking about two space tourists who fly around the moon in a spaceship and return to Earth. Blue Origin is also developing its own service for delivering goods to a natural satellite of our planet.

Earlier, announced the flight to the moon and the agency NASA. And now the Chinese newspaper Renmin Jibao announced that China had begun developing its own reusable spacecraft. This device is one of the main elements of the ambitious Chinese space program.

As for the moon, the Chinese are not going to lag behind other countries and private organizations. The head of the space program of China, Zhang Bonan, told reporters the publication
Science and Technology Daily that the Chinese spacecraft will be created quickly, so that China will not be ahead of foreign competitors. From the foregoing, it can be concluded that the flight to the moon is planned for the year 2023, since it was then that the NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are going to send their ship.
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According to Zhang, currently only the Orion , a multi-purpose manned spacecraft being developed in the United States, is being developed and can deliver people to the moon. According to the data provided by the developers, there can be six people on the Orion. For a manned crew to the moon enough and 3-4 people. The ship "Orion" had to ensure the delivery of people to the moon for a long stay on it in order to further prepare a manned flight to Mars. The Chinese hope that the characteristics of their ship will exceed the parameters of the Orion.

Despite the fact that the Chinese government has not approved all the moments of a long process of developing a spacecraft, the Celestial experts have already begun to build the ship. The Chinese government has provided the project team with large funds (unfortunately, the exact amount is not reported). China is spending billions of dollars on its space program.

One of China’s targets on the moon is the helium-3 isotope . Its Chinese are going to mine for the fusion reactors of the future. And this is really a promising fuel, since only 0.02 grams of helium-3 during a thermonuclear reaction can give energy as much as it is formed when a barrel of oil is burned. And 1 ton of helium-3 gives an annual supply of energy of a relatively small country. Helium-3, according to scientists, is contained in the lunar regolith. Here it accumulated in the near-surface layer after billions of years of exposure to the solar wind. A ton of regolith contains only 0.01 grams of helium-3. But behind this resource, not only China, but also India are ready to fly to the moon. And this is even though thermonuclear reactors exist only in the form of prototypes. For the time being, they consume much more energy than they give away.

As part of the development of its space program, the Chinese are going to launch 110 rockets into space in just 5 years. This is the densest schedule of launches among all the space powers. Within a few years, China is going to begin an active study of not only the Moon, but also Mars.

In addition, China is developing its own automatic stations for sending to asteroids, which are located near the Earth. A rover is being developed in China, which will be sent to the Red Planet together with the Long March-5 booster rocket, which is also being developed.

By 2022, China is going to deploy its own space station. According to the plan, it will consist of three parts, including the main module and two laboratories. The weight of each module is about 20 tons. The station has already received the name "Tyangun-3".


On the moon, the Chinese may well be useful service delivery of goods, which was mentioned above. The main element of this program is the creation of a new New Glenn launch vehicle, which is currently being developed. Bezos plans to deliver cargoes to the South Pole of the natural satellite of the Earth, in the area of ​​the Shackleton crater. Delivery of goods can be very useful for projects to create colonies of earthlings on the moon. Such projects are being worked out by a number of companies. In space, a heavy rocket will display an automatic robot messenger, which will go after undocking to the moon.

It can hold up to 4.5 tons of payload, including scientific equipment, building materials and more. Jeff Bezos believes that the project should be implemented with NASA. Such cooperation, according to the head of Blue Origin, will allow the establishment and development of a settlement of people on the moon by the mid-20s.



In 2013, the Chinese sent a “Yuuta” mobile unit to the Moon, which quickly failed due to problems with the mast antenna and the folding mechanism of solar batteries in the box. The Chinese themselves declared their lunar mission successful, and we can agree with them in principle.