China's Ambitious Space Exploration Plans Unveiled
China has unveiled its updated roadmap for lunar and deep space exploration, including missions to the Moon, Mars, asteroids, and Jupiter. The Chang'e program will focus on lunar exploration, with Chang'e 6 set to conduct a sample return mission in 2024, Chang'e 7 studying the Moon's south pole in 2026, and Chang'e 8 testing in-situ resource generation in 2028. The Tianwen missions will explore other bodies in the solar system, with Tianwen-2 targeting an asteroid and Tianwen-3 planning a sample return mission to Mars. China also experienced a recent launch failure with the Gushenxing-1 rocket, but has successfully launched several other missions.