Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld

I’ve covered China’s space programme in some detail in these pages, not so much because I’m a fan of the Chinese government, but because – and US readers may not like it – China has proven it can put together a highly competent and integrated national space programme. One that is, and despite all of its magnificent achievements to date over the decades, is far more integrated in terms of projects and goals than the US national space programme, which has, where manned space exploration is concerned, largely plodded along somewhat aimlessly for some 40 years.

Obviously, a lot of this comes down to politics and governance. The US government is answerable to the people, and this includes NASA which is – completely and utterly wrongly – seen by many as a high-cost waste of taxpayer money. I say “wrongly” deliberately, as NASA’s budget accounts for just 0.35% of the US federal budget. Compare that to the 62% gobbled up annually by the Pentagon.

Of course, there are considerable differences in scale and need between the Pentagon and NASA, but considering all the latter does achieve annually in the fields of space science, astronomy, space exploration health and safety, avionics and aeronautics even without firmer integration of its major goals and ambitions, adds up to NASA doing a huge amount for very little in the overall scheme of things.

China’s government does not answer to its people, ergo, its spending is entirely at its own whim. This means China can be more indulgent in its spending around space goals (something also helped by the fact that a good portion of the Chinese space programme is linked to the People’s Liberation Army, which can swallow costs and overruns in what might otherwise be seen as civilian operations in the name of “national security”).

Even so, since the 1970s, China has sought to pace its activities in space in a manner that is both pragmatic and which has enabled them to build expertise in planetary science, rocketry, launch capabilities and to develop a coordinated approach to space exploration. The latter, as I recently covered in these pages, is particularly notable within China’s lunar ambitions, which have throughout seen both robot missions (their family of Chang’e landers, orbiters and rovers) and upcoming human missions tied together in one over-arching programme – the Chinese Lunar Exploration Programme, or CLEP. True, NASA did something similar with Project Apollo and is doing so again with Project Artemis, but the degree of shared goals and progression from robotic to human exploration is not on the same scale as China’s.

The same is true when it comes to China’s Tiangong space station and CLEP. This operates both as an independent orbital research facility and as an Earth-bound extension to CLEP, providing an on-orbit medical research facility, a training environment to help lunar crews carry out tasks in microgravity as they might whilst going to or returning from the Moon, and providing the means to develop food cultivation methods which could be employed on the Moon to help supplement diets.

As a part of this work, 2026 will see the launch of Shenzhou 23 in April. The 17th Chinese crewed spaceflight and the 23rd for the Shenzhou programme overall, the mission carry three tiakonauts to Tiangong, as is usual for such missions. However, unlike all crewed missions to date, which have seen personnel spend no longer than 6 months on the station, Shenzhou 23 will see one of the crew (as yet unnamed) spend a full year in orbit.

Such long duration missions are the stuff of legend for NASA and Roscosmos, with astronauts and cosmonauts alike spending in excess of a year in space, largely for medical research purposes (such as studying the impact of microgravity on the human physiology) and kind-of tangentially focused on some ideas of human deep space missions, such as the now defunct near-Earth asteroid rendezvous mission or looking towards some far-off mission to Mars.

For China, the goals are both similar and more immediate: the Chinese want to know more about the physical and psychological impact of a long-duration stay in near zero gravity and how the more debilitating effects might be countered and they want to start gathering data on the effects of something like a voyage to Mars undertaken in microgravity – a human mission to Mars also being one of their stated medium-term goals once they have established a presence on the Moon.

Also coming up this year is the first – and uncrewed – orbital flight test of China’s Mengzhou multi-purpose crewed space vehicle. Set to initially operate alongside Shenzhou (itself a derivative of Russia’s Soyuz vehicle), Mengzhou is set to be – as I’ve also mentioned previously – an integrated and highly-capable vehicle, designed to both provide three crew (as standard, although it can carry up to 6 or 7) with access to Tiangong, and also in an extended operations mode providing 3-4 taikonauts with a ride to lunar orbit.

No target date for this orbital flight test has yet been given, but all major milestones required for it to take place have been successfully cleared, and its dedicated launch vehicle, the Long March 10 (CZ-10) is also very close to being ready for an orbital launch attempt, having passed the majority of its development and testing milestones.

Nor does it end there in terms of ambitions and integration. Like NASA and Roscosmos, China is working to encourage international cooperation and participation in its space aspirations.  CLEP is set to evolve into the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) project which will see participation in China’s lunar project from Russia, South Africa, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Venezuela, Pakistan and Egypt, to name the headline nations.

Whilst not as all encompassing as the Artemis Accords (which involve 61 countries at the time of writing), ILRS nevertheless points to the fact that China is determined to be a major leader in space-based human activities. To this end, Shenzhou 24, scheduled for later in 2026, will see a Pakistani astronaut fly to Tiangong, and there are plans to fly astronauts from both Macau and Hong Kong to the station as well (although these are more from Chinese-managed Special Administrative Regions rather than representatives from genuine foreign nations).

China’s First lunar Mission May Target Rimae Bode

Whilst the Chinese Lunar Exploration Programme is, like Project Artemis, focused on the South Polar Region of the Moon for the establishment of a lunar research station, the first crewed lunar landing on the Moon by Chinese nationals will not be in that region; instead, it will likely be to the lunar nearside, not too far from the equator.

There are several good reasons for this. Most notably, such a location would enjoy direct line-of-sight communications with Earth throughout the majority of the mission. Secondly, it can be timed to take place under more favourable lighting conditions than might be the case with a mission to the South Polar Region. Thirdly, it doesn’t require a lot of complex orbital manoeuvring in order to get the lander into the desired obit, again simplifying the overall mission profile. There’s also the fact that China has never been to the Moon before with a human crew, thus a nearside mission with full communications, etc., allows mission managers to gain vital experience in managing such a mission without the complications a polar landing might bring.

The potential landing zone for this – as yet unnamed mission, which is targeting 2030 – is Rimae Bode. Located at the boundary between Mare Vaporum and the highlands on the central lunar nearside, the area has been selected as the likely landing site because of its scientific value. Diversely volcanic, the region provides easy access to assorted  lunar material and differing terrain types within a relatively small area – ancient lava flows, rilles (long, narrow, channel-like features formed by ancient lava flows) and local impact craters which have left subsurface materials exposed on the surface for easy collection and study.

Rimae Bode is actually one of 106 potential landing candidates under consideration for the first Chinese crewed landing on the Moon, but it has grown in popularity with scientists and mission planners because of its sheer diversity and opportunities for exploration. further, it has long been considered a site worthy of human and / or robotic exploration and because it is relatively accessible.

Of particular interest to scientists is the potential for Rimae Bode to reveal insights into the Moon’s deep interior.

The most ground-breaking discovery from the Rimae Bode region would likely come from the dark mantle deposits, which consist of volcanic ash and glass beads that were violently erupted from the moon’s deep interior billions of years ago. These samples act as ‘messengers’ from the lunar mantle, offering a rare opportunity to directly analyse the chemical composition of the moon’s deep heart — information that is usually hidden beneath miles of crust.

– Professor Jun Huang, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan

Examining this material together with studying the region’s complex network of lava channels, could help in the reconstruction of the Moon’s early volcanic history, with samples perhaps indicating how the Moon cooled and what triggered its most massive eruptions. Studies of the region and its rocks and minerals might even inform scientists on how all rocky planets, including Earth, cooled and evolved after their birth.

The final decision on a landing zone for the first Chinese crewed mission to the Moon has yet to be made, so Rimae Bode may yet lose out. However, given the nature of the region, its location and the fact it has long been the focus of scientific curiosity possibly makes this unlikely.

Van Allen Probe Makes Belated Return to Earth

Wednesday, March 11th, 2026 saw the return to Earth of one of two probes launched in 2012 to increase our understanding of the Van Allen radiation belts around our planet.

Named for James Van Allen, who discovered them in 1958 using data gathered by America’s first successful satellite, Explorer 1, the Van Allen belts are missive, if invisible doughnut like structures surrounding Earth in two layers – the inner and outer radiation belts. Combined, they range in altitude from a few hundred kilometres to some 96,000 km, and comprise protons and electrons trapped within the Earth’s magnetic field.

The Van Allen belts are what might be called frienemies of life. On the one side, they act as a shield, deflecting harmful cosmic radiation and the relentless stream of charged particles blasted out by the Sun, making our planet far more supportive of life than would otherwise be the case. On the other, they’d happily kill you if you loiter in them for too long. They are also a constant hazard to satellites orbiting through them, as they will also merrily fry unprotected electronics and, during periods of high solar activity, they “puff up” with even greater concentrations of radiation which can easily kill satellites completely and disrupt Earth-based communications, GPS systems, and so on.

Spaceflight and Moon landing deniers point to the Van Allen Belts as “proof” that all space missions are “fake” as “no-one can survive them” – although their reasoning is far more a demonstration of their inability to grasp concepts such as velocity together with an overly simplistic view of what the belts are and what is required form them to have a lasting impact. However, they are correct in their stance that loitering within the influence of the belts is definitely not a good idea.

The twin Van Allen Probes were specifically built and launched to increase our understanding of the Van Allen Belts in terms of their ability to severely harm the inner electronics and workings of satellites that have no other choice but to loiter within the radiation environment as they orbit the Earth. Armed with hyper-sensitive sensors and recorders, the two probes of an identical design were given an initial 2-year primary mission. However, both continued to operate through until 2019, when their stocks of manoeuvring propellants were exhausted, leaving them unable to main a proper communications / power generation orientation, and both were retired. In that time, the craft – called simply “Probe A” and “Probe B” gathered a huge amount of data concerning the belts and the dynamics at work within them; data which has both altered our understanding of the belts and which is still being researched and studied.

Given their extreme orbital regime (617 km to over 30,000 km), both Probe A and Probe B were expected to remain in orbit until the mid-2030s. However, such has been the level of solar activity from 2019 onwards (with Solar Maximum being reached in 2024), the upper reaches of our atmosphere have been greatly inflated as a result of solar radiation influx. This has increased drag on multiple satellites, including the 600 kg Van Allen probes, with Probe A in particular being impacted.

By 2025 it was clear that Probe A was coming down sooner rather than later, the atmospheric drag having significantly lowered its altitude overall, with its perigee in the low hundreds of kilometres. By early 2026, it became obvious the probe only had weeks or months at the most left before it reached interface with the denser atmosphere and started to break / burn up. This started on March 11th (UTC) as it entered the denser atmosphere over the Galapagos Islands. The majority of the probe was destroyed in the upper atmosphere as it passed over South America, although some debris is believed to have fallen into the Atlantic Ocean.

Whilst also affected by the Sun’s activity, Probe B currently remains in orbit, although it is expected to now re-enter the atmosphere in 2030, rather than the mid-2030s as originally anticipated.