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In two decades China has orbited the Moon, landed on its far side and brought home samples from both hemispheres. Here is how the Chang'e programme got there, and what comes next.
No country has done more on the Moon's surface this century than China. Since 2007 its robotic Chang'e missions have mapped the Moon from orbit, made the first ever landing on the far side and returned samples from both hemispheres, without a single mission failure. Now the country is building the rockets, spacecraft and suits it needs to put its own astronauts on the surface before the end of the decade.
A programme named after a goddess
The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program was approved on 23 January 2004. It is better known as the Chang'e programme, after the goddess who, in Chinese legend, lives on the Moon. Its rovers carry the name Yutu, the Jade Rabbit who keeps her company.
From the start the plan was deliberately step by step: first orbit, then land, then bring samples home. Each mission was designed to test the technology the next one would need.
Orbiting first: Chang'e 1 and 2
Chang'e 1 launched on 24 October 2007 and spent over a year building a detailed 3D map of the whole Moon and charting where useful elements lie on the surface. Chang'e 2 followed on 1 October 2010, reaching the Moon in under five days and mapping it in even finer detail. It then left lunar orbit altogether and, on 13 December 2012, flew past the asteroid Toutatis.
Landing: Chang'e 3 and the far side
On 14 December 2013 Chang'e 3 touched down in Mare Imbrium, the first soft landing on the Moon since 1976. It released the first Yutu rover, and its lander hovered at 100 m and again at 30 m, using its own cameras to pick a safe spot to set down.
The next step was much harder. The far side of the Moon never faces Earth, so a spacecraft there cannot talk to mission control directly. In 2018 China launched Queqiao, a relay satellite parked beyond the Moon, and on 3 January 2019 Chang'e 4 landed in Von Kármán crater on the far side. It was the first landing there by anyone. Its rover, Yutu-2, went on to become the longest working rover ever to drive on the Moon.
Bringing the Moon home: Chang'e 5 and 6
Chang'e 5 launched on 23 November 2020, landed near Mons Rümker on 1 December and returned 1,731 g of lunar soil to Earth on 16 December. It was the first sample return from the Moon in more than four decades, and needed a robotic docking in lunar orbit to hand the samples from one spacecraft to another.
Chang'e 6 then repeated the feat on the far side. It launched on 3 May 2024, landed in the Apollo basin, inside the vast South Pole-Aitken basin, on 1 June, and brought home almost 2 kg of material on 25 June. These are the first samples ever collected from the far side, and scientists around the world, including in the UK, are now studying them.
Next: the south pole
The next two missions head for the lunar south pole, the region where water ice is thought to lie in permanently shadowed craters.
Chang'e 7 will carry an orbiter, a lander, a rover and a small flying probe designed to hop into those dark craters and look for ice. It was rolled out to the launch pad at Wenchang in August 2026, but on 23 August the launch was called off and the rocket returned to its assembly building. No new date has been announced, and international partners have suggested 2027.
Chang'e 8, planned for around 2028, will test how to use local materials, including an experiment in 3D printing structures from lunar soil. Both missions are stepping stones to the International Lunar Research Station, a south pole base China announced with Russia in 2021 and has since opened to other countries.
Astronauts by 2030
In July 2023 China set out a preliminary plan to land two astronauts on the Moon by 2030. Two Long March 10 rockets will launch separately: one carrying the Lanyue lander, the other the Mengzhou crew spacecraft. They will meet in lunar orbit, two astronauts will descend in Lanyue, and they will explore the surface wearing the new Wangyu suit, with a crewed rover called Tansuo.
That hardware is now flying. In 2026 China carried out a low-altitude test flight of the Long March 10 and an in-flight abort test of the Mengzhou capsule, both milestones on the road to a first crewed landing.
Why it matters
China's steady record has turned the Moon back into a place where several nations are racing to land, and where the south pole is the prize. With NASA's Artemis astronauts and China's crews both aiming for the surface before the decade is out, the 2030s look set to be the busiest period of lunar exploration since Apollo, and a remarkable time to own a small piece of the Moon.
