HELSINKI — China has chosen payloads from a range of international partners to fly on the country’s Chang’e-8 lunar south pole mission, expanding its space diplomacy.
The China National Space Administration (CNSA) officially announced the selection April 24 of cooperation projects for the Chang’e-8 mission, scheduled to launch in 2028 or 2029, selecting 10 projects from 11 different countries, regions and one international organization. It follows a 2023 announcement of opportunities to collaborate in Chang’e-8, in which 200 kilograms of payload resources were made available.
Chosen payloads include multi-functional robots, rovers, and instruments for astronomy and analyzing particles, imagers and a laser retroreflector. The mission will include a Chinese rover, a Pakistani rover, and, for the first time in a Chinese lunar mission, micro-rovers jointly developed by a Turkish university, a Chinese university and a private company.
The selection includes a number of countries that have already signed up to the China-led International Lunar Research Station (ILRS); an initiative that seeks to establish a robotic moon base which will eventually host visiting astronauts.
These include Russia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, Pakistan, Bahrain and Egypt. Iran and Peru are engaged with the ILRS initiative through their membership in the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (APSCO), which supports ILRS efforts and is headquartered in Beijing.
The payloads selected for Chang’e-8 are:
- Lunar surface multi-functional operation robot and mobile charging station (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University).
- Pakistan lunar rover (Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission of Pakistan (SUPARCO) and the International Society for Terrain-Vehicle Systems).
- Intelligent exploration robot for challenging environments (two micro-rovers) (Middle East Technical University of Turkey, in partnership with Zhejiang University and commercial company Star.Vision).
- Radio astronomy array (South African Radio Astronomy Observatory and the National Commission for Aerospace Research and Development of Peru).
- Laser corner reflector array (National Institute for Nuclear Physics–Frascati National Laboratories, Italy).
- Lunar plasma-dust environment sensor and the lunar ion and high-energy neutral particle analyzer (Russian Federal Space Agency and the Russian State Space Corporation).
- Lunar neutron analyzer (Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation of Thailand and the National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand).
- Visible and infrared imaging system for the lunar surface (Bahrain National Space Science Agency and the Egyptian Space Agency).
- Lunar potential monitor (Iranian Space Agency).
Chang’e-8 will target a landing on a plateau near Mons Mouton, also known as Leibnitz Beta, near the lunar south pole. The region features Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSRs) that could be cold traps for volatiles, including water-ice.
The mission, and the planned 2026 Chang’e-7 south pole landing mission, are precursors to the ILRS, which will begin to be constructed in the 2030s. Chang’e-8 will test in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) technologies, notably the 3D printing of bricks from lunar soil, in order to verify the capability to build habitats from local materials.
China has previously stated it aims to attract 50 countries to join the ILRS. State media Xinhua, citing a senior CNSA official, reported April 24 that a total of 17 countries and international organizations, as well as more than 50 international research institutions, had joined the ILRS project. It did not name the individual entities that had signed up.
Previous reporting notes that Russia, Venezuela, Belarus, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, South Africa, Egypt, Nicaragua, Thailand, Serbia and Kazakhstan and Senegal have signed agreements and MoUs regarding the ILRS as national-level participants, with Turkey understood to have signed up also.
A range of subnational entities, such as companies, associations and universities, have also joined, including groups and firms from Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, Panama, Indonesia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Kyrgyzstan, Croatia, Sri Lanka and Hawaii.
The ILRS is an alternative vision to the U.S.-led Artemis Accords and Artemis program, with China positioning the initiative as a collaborative, open scientific enterprise amid broader geopolitical tensions.
