Russia, China Plan Joint Lunar Base

Russia is planning to set up a lunar base with China, and seems okay with the possibility of the United States joining the project.

“This morning, we held a teleconference with my Chinese counterpart. We agreed to begin studying building a lunar scientific base. The project is open to all, even the Americans,” Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, said in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda radio station on Monday.

But the project may be spearheaded by Russia and China. The Chinese have grown tremendously in this field in recent years,” the official added, reports Interfax.

The project provides for the deployment of a space monitoring system on the moon to study deep space with the prospect of entering international cooperation in the field of asteroid-comet safety. Rogozin hinted Russia and China could create a joint system of operators for the commercial distribution of the results of high-precision remote sensing of the Earth.

A little over two months ago, the official announced that Russia plans to land astronauts on the moon around 2028. According to him, a manned flight to moon will take place in 2029.

In March, Rogozin said production of the first modules of the Russian Yenisei launch vehicle was launched in Russia. Preliminary design of the rocket was approved at the end of 2019. The start of flight design tests of the Russian superheavy rocket is scheduled for 2028, the rocket is created on the basis of the Soyuz-5 launch vehicle blocks.

It will have a carrying capacity of 88 tons and will ensure the launch of a manned transport ship weighing 20 tons into the polar near-moon orbit. This will allow to begin manned flights to the Moon, including the launch of manned and cargo transport ships, landing and take-off ships and modules of the near-moon orbital stations into the Earth’s satellite orbit.