China invites bids for lunar satellite to support crewed moon landing missions

HELSINKI — China’s human spaceflight agency has announced a tender process for a lunar satellite to support the country’s first crewed moon landing and subsequent missions.

The China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO) issued the “lunar remote sensing satellite project tender announcement” on its webpages Feb. 14, inviting capable domestic enterprises and institutions to participate in the bidding process. Initial bids need to be made before March 8.

The description of the planned satellite provides some insight into China’s current stated plans for its first crewed moon landing attempt, currently targeted to take place before 2030. The development comes amid uncertainty surrounding the U.S. Artemis program.

“The lunar remote sensing satellite aims to obtain high-precision topographic and geomorphic data of the moon’s low-latitude regions, map key mineral resource distributions, and identify characteristic minerals. The satellite will support China’s first crewed lunar landing and subsequent missions,” a machine translation of the announcement’s project overview reads.

The description’s mention of low latitudes suggests that the satellite could operate in a low inclination orbit (or polar orbit, with a focus on low latitude observation), while indicating China’s first crewed moon landing will target areas nearer to the equator. It is likely the satellite will assist landing site selection, based on topographical and resource data.

This lower latitude plan echoes the U.S. Apollo missions and is in contrast to the Artemis plans, which target the lunar south pole. China’s robotic landings have targeted the mid latitudes, with Chang’e-4 and Chang’e-6 landing on the lunar far side. The country’s first polar landing attempt is expected in 2026 with Chang’e-7, with sub-hundred-meter precision. The latter two missions will be supported by Queqiao-2, which is in a high inclination, elliptical orbit. The new orbiter would likely be required to provide frequent revisits over areas of interest and potential landing sites.

The focus on mineral distributions could be related to plans for sustained lunar exploration and resource utilization. The country is leading the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) program which aims to establish a robotic base in the 2030s. 

Potential commercial involvement?

The wording of the tender announcement also suggests that commercial entities could be considered for the project, though with limitations. This furthers indications that China is opening lunar exploration to the commercial sector, or at least to entities outside of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), China’s state-owned main space contractor. However, joint bids and subcontracting are not accepted.

This follows the China National Space Administration (CNSA) recently allowing commercial participation for the first time in the Chang’e-8 mission. CMSEO has recently also selected institutes other than those under CASC to develop two low-cost cargo solutions for the Tiangong space station which could be launched on commercial rockets as soon as this year. CASC developed China’s Chang’e spacecraft and major space projects such as the Tiangong space station.

Notably however, the bidding is not open to non-Chinese entities, despite the ostensibly international nature of the China-led ILRS. International cooperation thus far appears to be mainly at the payload level, including with space partners with limited experience. Pakistan will send a rover on the Chang’e-8 mission as part of allocated international payload mass, with a Turkish university involved in another payload project.

Lunar constellations, hardware progress

China has previously stated it plans to build a lunar satellite constellation to provide communications, navigation, position and timing, and remote sensing support for long-term lunar exploration. 

The country is also progressing on hardware to make the crewed landing attempt possible later in the decade. This includes a new Long March 10 rocket for crew and lander stack launches, a crew spacecraft (Mengzhou), a lunar lander (Lanyue), lunar extravehicular suits and an unpressurized crew rover. CMSEO unveiled names for the latter pair earlier this week, along with an update on the progress of their development. Construction of new launch facilities at Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan island for the Long March 10 is also progressing as planned, according to officials.

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