By Eduardo Baptista
SHANGHAI (Reuters) -China is considering building a nuclear plant on the Moon to power the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) it is planning with Russia, a presentation by a senior official showed on Wednesday.
China is aiming to become a major space power and land astronauts on the Moon by 2030, and its Chang’e-8 mission aims to lay the groundwork for the construction of a permanent manned lunar base.
In a presentation in Shanghai, the 2028 mission’s Chief Engineer Pei Zhaoyu showed that the lunar base’s energy supply could also depend on large-scale solar arrays, and pipelines and cables for heating and electricity built on the Moon’s surface.
Russia’s space agency Roscosmos announced last year plans to build a nuclear reactor on the Moon’s surface with the China National Space Administration by 2035 in order to power the ILRS.
The inclusion of the nuclear power unit in a Chinese space official’s presentation to officials from the 17 countries and international organisations that make up the ILRS suggests Beijing supports the idea although it has never formally announced it.
China’s timeline to build an outpost on the Moon’s south pole coincides with NASA’s more ambitious and advanced Artemis programme, which aims to put U.S. astronauts back on the lunar surface in December 2025.
Wu Weiren, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chief designer of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Project, said last year that a “basic model” of the ILRS, with the Moon’s south pole as its core, would be built by 2035.
The Chang’e lunar probe launches are part of the construction phase for the “basic model” outlined by Wu.
In the future, China will create the “555 Project”, inviting 50 countries, 500 international scientific research institutions, and 5,000 overseas researchers to join the ILRS.
(Reporting by Eduardo Baptista in Shanghai; Editing by Farah Master and Kate Mayberry)
