As the US Artemis 2 crew completes its historic 10-day lunar orbit mission—the first with humans since Apollo—China is scrutinizing every detail for technical lessons to support its own astronaut lunar landing by 2030.
NASA's Artemis 2 mission, which launched on Wednesday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft, marks humanity's return to lunar orbit after over 50 years.
With China advancing toward a 2030 moon landing, experts say Beijing is observing the flight intensely. Quentin Parker, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Hong Kong, described China as watching Artemis 2 “like a hawk,” noting that China and other nations will 'look attentively at everything they can glean from all the experiences of the Artemis crew and mission.'
This scrutiny occurs amid a new space race to the moon’s south pole, where China aims to match or precede NASA's 2028 landing deadline through initiatives like the International Lunar Research Station, powered by Long March rockets and Mengzhou spacecraft.
