#china-lunar-program

#china-lunar-program

China's Shenzhou-21 spaceship launched Friday, carrying its youngest astronaut and small mammals to the country's orbiting space station. The Tiangong space station, crewed by rotating teams of three astronauts, is the centerpiece of China's multibillion-dollar space program. Beijing aims to send astronauts to the moon by the decade's end and eventually build a lunar base, in a bid to rival the US and Russian space programs.

A multibillion-dollar contract between NASA and SpaceX is under scrutiny as the Elon Musk-helmed space company's plans to return astronauts to the surface of the Moon keep slipping. As the New York Times reports, experts are now warning that China could beat the United States in the race back to the Moon. After a series of successful robotic missions to the Earth's natural satellite, the country has made major strides in its efforts to launch its "Lanyue" lunar lander to the Moon before 2030.