Due to need for 'absolute success,' China delays critical Moon launch to 2027 - Ars Technica

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China’s “Manned Space” program issued a terse announcement on Sunday regarding its much-anticipated Chang’e 7 lunar exploration mission.

The agency stated: “In keeping with the principle of proceeding prudently and reliably, and ensuring absolute success, after a comprehensive assessment it has been determined that the Chang’e 7 mission does not meet the conditions for launch and therefore cannot be carried out during the planned launch window this year.”

The Chinese message offered no explanation for the cause of the delay from the Wenchang Space Launch Site, located on an island in the South China Sea. Consisting of a lunar orbiter, lander, rover, and a mini-hopper of a probe, the mission was due to launch as early as Sunday on a Long March 5 rocket. It is intended to land at the South Pole of the Moon.

Weather and launch windows

Most likely, Sunday’s delayed launch was due to Typhoon Narra, which has 45-mph winds (equivalent to a moderate Tropical Storm) and continues to meander around in the waterway separating Hainan island, where the spaceport is located, and mainland China.

According to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, this storm is expected to continue tracking in this general area for the next two or three days, likely providing inclement weather at the Wenchang launch site. Plausibly, then, Chinese forecasters determined that the weather would not break before the current launch window to reach the lunar pole from Wenchang closes.

Although official Chinese sources have provided no confirmed information, there has been social media chatter indicating that another suitable launch window may not open until next February or March. Why so long? It likely is a combination of factors, including sunlight conditions in polar landing zones as well as the mission plan that requires a 90-day lunar orbit reconnaissance before landing.

Another, lesser possibility, is that some technical issue was discovered at the last minute with either the complex Chang’e 7 payload, or the rocket. The large Long March 5 rocket shares an engine, the YF-100, with the Long March 7A vehicle that was lost during ascent two weeks ago. This engine issue seems unlikely to be the cause of the delay, however, as China had been proceeding toward launch in recent days.

Latest twist in the second space race

The delay comes amid a tight contest between China and the United States to establish a meaningful presence at the South Pole of the Moon. Robotic missions such as Chang’e 7 are precursor flights for human missions that could follow in the next two to four years.

Chang’e 7 is planned to land near one of the most compelling regions of the Moon, Shackleton Crater, very nearly at the South Pole. Much of the lunar surface is pretty barren, but the South Pole, and Shackleton Crater in particular, offers some of the most coveted real estate there. This is because the high rims of the crater create permanently shadowed regions known as “cold traps,” where it’s thought that water (in the form of ice, of course) and other useful materials may have accumulated over billions of years. In all of NASA’s and China’s plans for long-term settlement on the Moon, relatively few square miles at the South Pole of the Moon matter the most.

No country has softly landed a spacecraft at the lunar poles, which are more difficult to reach than equatorial regions of the Moon. The delay of Chang’e 7 opens up the possibility that NASA could reach this terrain first, with the initial launch of Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 vehicle. This large lander will carry two NASA probes to the South Pole.

Blue Moon was on track to launch this year before the loss of the New Glenn rocket, and its launch pad, at Cape Canaveral, Florida during a static fire test in May. Blue Origin has been hustling to rebuild its Launch Complex 36A facility in Florida, and aims to return New Glenn to flight before the end of this year. That is probably ambitious, but Blue Moon could plausibly launch during the first half of 2027, making for a close race with Chang’e 7 if it were to launch in February, and spend three months in lunar orbit before landing.

Eric Berger

Senior Space Editor

Eric Berger

Senior Space Editor

Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9...