Piecing Together China’s Big Plans To Send Astronauts to the Moon Before 2030

China’s blossoming space exploration agenda includes sending the country’s astronauts to the Moon for the first time, a master plan that calls for a crew to climb down the ladder of their lander before 2030.

For the last several months, China space experts have repeatedly rolled out how-to-do humans-to-the-Moon exploration. Although cited as preliminary, their strategy as now scoped out is to make use of two carrier rockets hurling a Moon lander and a crewed spacecraft into lunar orbit. The two individual components would then rendezvous and dock with each other so that crew transfer into the Moon lander could be done in lunar orbit.