Lin Xiqiang, the deputy director of China's Manned Space Agency, has announced the country's plan to land astronauts on the moon by 2030. The project is named the Chang'e Project.
China plans to complete a mission to land a person on the moon by 2030, a government official announced on Monday, in the highest-level confirmation of China’s ambitions for a crewed lunar landing.
Chinese scientists have previously nodded at a 2030 goal in a less formal capacity; for example, the chief designer of China’s lunar exploration program said last month that a 2030 landing would be “no problem.”
“We can clasp the moon in the ninth heaven,” Lin Xiqiang, the deputy director of China’s Manned Space Agency, said at a news conference on Monday, quoting a Mao Zedong poem.
Mr. Lin said the moon landing project, part of the country’s broader Lunar Exploration Project — also known as the Chang’e Project, for the Chinese moon goddess — had “recently” been kick-started, though he did not off...