China takes the lead, South Africa officially joins the International Lunar Research Station program.
CTOnews.com, September 8, according to China's Aerospace, the press and publicity center of the National Space Administration, on September 1, 2023, Chen Xiaodong of the Chinese Embassy in South Africa, on behalf of the Chinese National Space Administration, signed a "Memorandum of understanding between the National Space Administration of China and the South African National Space Agency on Cooperation between the International Lunar Research Station" with the director of the National Space Administration of South Africa, marking South Africa's formal accession to the International Lunar Research Station program.
According to the memorandum of understanding, the two sides will carry out extensive cooperation in the demonstration, project implementation, operation and application, education and training of the International Lunar Research Station. In addition, under the framework of BRICS remote sensing satellite constellation cooperation, China-South space agencies have carried out cooperation in the exchange and application of remote sensing data and satellite ground stations.
According to CTOnews.com, China took the lead in signing a memorandum of understanding with Russia on cooperation in the construction of an international lunar research station in 2021, followed by the participation of countries and institutions such as the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (APSCO), and South Africa is the latest member.
According to a report in April this year by Academician Wu Weiren, chief designer of the Chinese lunar exploration project and director of the Deep Space Exploration Laboratory, the International Lunar Research Station will be implemented in three stages:
It is planned to build the basic model by 2028 and carry out experimental verification of lunar environmental exploration and resource utilization.
A perfect type will be built by 2040 to carry out sun-earth-moon space environment exploration and scientific experiments, and to build a magpie bridge integrated constellation to serve manned lunar landing and deep space exploration such as Mars and Venus.
After that, an applied lunar research station was built, which was gradually upgraded from a scientific research experimental station to a practical and multi-functional lunar base.
