China publicly discloses plan for a lunar landing within three years

But there are major questions surrounding the development of a lunar lander, for which both SpaceX and Blue Origin have multibillion-dollar development contracts. Depending on how these projects go, a US lunar landing could be delayed to 2030 or even later.

Although it is virtually impossible for outsiders to glean information about technical milestones achieved inside China’s space program, the country is clearly making credible progress toward reaching the Moon. For example, in August 2025, the China Manned Space Agency successfully tested a high-fidelity mock-up of its 26-ton Lanyue lunar lander. The test used giant tethers to simulate lunar gravity as the vehicle fired its main engines and fine-control thrusters to land on a cratered surface and take off from a location near Beijing.

Recently, the Mengzhou spacecraft for the 2027 test atop a Long March 10A rocket arrived at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in Hainan, China, where the mission will launch.

US government assessments of the Chinese space program are restricted, but lawmakers are clearly taking the threat seriously. In the last 12 months, the US Congress and White House have given broad latitude to NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman to streamline the Artemis Program to land humans on the Moon. He has moved swiftly to cancel the Lunar Gateway space station and planned upgrades to the Space Launch System rocket. And just last week, Isaacman announced plans to help Blue Origin develop a lunar lander by finding a way to boost the Orion spacecraft into low-lunar orbit.

“We have the mandate, we have the resources, and the support from our stakeholders to be able to execute, and that’s what we intend to do,” he said at the time.

For a couple of years, it has been clear that China has made a major commitment to landing astronauts on the Moon, preferably before the United States returns to the lunar surface, to score a major geopolitical win. Beyond this near-term competition, both NASA and China’s space program are building capabilities to establish a long-term presence at the Moon’s South Pole. As part of this second phase of the contest, Isaacman committed NASA to the development of a base on the surface of the Moon over the next decade.