China is making serious progress in its goal to land astronauts on the moon by 2030

China is going full throttle in its quest to land astronauts on the moon by 2030.

That was clearly evident in an Aug. 15 ground test of the first-stage propulsion system of the Long March 10 (CZ-10), the new rocket that China is building to send people toward the moon.

A variant launcher is the Long March-10A, which will launch China’s Mengzhou piloted spacecraft and uncrewed Tianzhou freighter to further utilize and evolve the country’s Tiangong space station in Earth orbit.

Record thrust

The August test firing involved a shortened mockup of the CZ-10’s first stage, outfitted with a cluster of seven YF-100K engines running on liquid oxygen and kerosene fuel. Four of the YF-100K engines are fixed in place, while the other three can swivel to control the rocket’s flight.

The engines roared for about 35 seconds using a new CZ-10 launch pad at the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in Hainan Province. The thrust scale in the test reached nearly 1,000 tons, a record for China’s space program.

Xu Hongping, an engineer with the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), told state-run broadcaster CCTV that “the first stage and boosters of the Long March-10 rocket are what we call the universal core stage, which essentially consists of three identical core modules bundled together.”

Peng Yue, also an engineer with CASC, told CCTV that “conducting a power system test is one of the most critical steps in rocket development. It mainly assesses the thermal and mechanical environment created by simultaneously operating seven engines on a 5-meter-diameter core stage. It’s also a key step to ensure system compatibility and to mitigate risks ahead of the rocket’s maiden flight.”

Moon milestones

The recent static fire test of the Long March-10 follows a progression of other humans-to-the-moon milestones notched this year by China. For example, there was a successful pad-abort test of the Mengzhou crewed spacecraft on June 17.

According to CCTV, Mengzhou’s escape engine ignited, then propelled the capsule-tower assembly upward. About 20 seconds later, the return capsule separated from the escape tower at a predetermined altitude. Two minutes later, the capsule parachuted safely into a designated area using an airbag cushioning system.

“It was the country’s first zero-altitude escape test for a manned spacecraft in 27 years, following a similar test for the Shenzhou spacecraft in 1998,” CCTV explained.

Then, on Aug. 6, China conducted a simulated takeoff and landing of its two-person “Lanyue” lunar lander at the “extraterrestrial celestial landing test site” in Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province.

This same site was used in 2019 to test the Tianwen-1 Mars lander that carried the Zhurong rover. Zhurong, China’s first-ever Mars rover, studied the Red Planet’s Utopia Planitia — a vast plain in which NASA’s Viking 2 spacecraft also landed in the 1970s — from May 2021 to May 2022.

Lanyue is designed to carry two astronauts between lunar orbit and the lunar surface. It can also tote a lunar rover and scientific payloads to support astronaut stay time and activities on the moon. (Chinese lunar missions will also use Mengzhou spacecraft, which will fly astronauts to lunar orbit and remain there while Lanyue descends to the surface.)

The Aug. 6 test validated the lander’s lunar touchdown and takeoff system, control plan, lunar contact shutdown procedures, and the compatibility of interfaces between subsystems, including guidance, navigation, control and propulsion.

According to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), Lanyue will serve as the “lunar life center, energy center and data center for astronauts after they land on the moon, and can support lunar residence and activities.”

Moonwalking suits

Speaking of astronauts landing on the moon: Last September, CMSA unveiled the country’s lunar spacesuit.

The spacesuit consists of protective materials to shield astronauts from the lunar thermal environment and pervasive lunar dust, CMSA explained. It is equipped with an easy-to-operate, multifunctional integrated control panel, as well as cameras for recording close-up and long-distance scenes.

The spacesuit also features flexible gloves, a panoramic glare-proof helmet visor, and joints adapted for low-gravity environments. The overall design of the spacesuit is lightweight and suitable for activities on the lunar surface, be it using a ladder to get down to the lunar surface from Lanyue or walking, squatting, bending over and kneeling on the gray dirt.