Special to CosmicTribune.com, November 5, 2025

Geostrategy-Direct

By Richard Fisher

On Oct. 30, 2025 the world was treated to a split-screen of the United States-China race back to the Moon in two press events:

• A China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO) press conference and then, released that same day,

• An update on its web page by the SpaceX Corporation on the progress made in its lunar programs.

CMSEO spokesman Zhang Jingbo emphasized that China will put its astronauts on the Moon by 2030, saying:

“Regarding the specific timeline, we remain steadfast in our goal of achieving a Chinese lunar landing by 2030. It should be noted that many new technologies still need to be verified, the product development workload is substantial, the quality requirements are high, the flight test schedule is tightly coordinated, and the progress is tight, presenting various risks and challenges.”

A state media Xinhua report from Oct. 30 added:

“Primary preliminary prototyping of key flight hardware, including the Long March-10 rocket, the Mengzhou spacecraft, the Lanyue lander, the Wangyu lunar extravehicular suit and the Tansuo crewed lunar rover, has been completed… Also, payload designs for scientific research and applications have been finalized, and ground-based infrastructure, such as the launch site, tracking network and landing site on Earth, is under accelerated development, according to Zhang.”

Of some significance, in late 2026 an unmanned test version of the new Chinese Menzhou manned spacecraft will be launched to dock with the Chinese Space Station, atop a new single-stack, eventually reusable first stage version, of the Long March-10 called Long March-10A.

According to a Nov. 3 Xinhua report, “The Mengzhou-1 crewed spaceship will make its maiden flight atop the Long March-10A carrier rocket from the Wenchang Space Launch Site in southern Hainan Province, and dock with the radial port of the space station’s core module.”

The CMSEO press conference and subsequent clarifying reports affirm that China’s manned lunar program now has real momentum, component programs are proceeding into advanced testing and these components could very well come together to enable China’s first manned mission to the Moon in 2029 or 2030.

Meanwhile, on the American side, Oct. 30 saw the SpaceX Corporation respond to recent criticism that the Human Landing System (HLS) version of its Starship spacecraft was “late,” by posting an update of its lunar programs on the Spacex webpage.

Apparently due to pressure from President Trump that the U.S. return to the Moon in his term, on Oct. 20 Secretary Sean Duffy, acting Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), had to open to competition provision of a new Moon Lander for the 2027-2028 Artemis-3 manned return-to-the-Moon mission because SpaceX is “late.”

That day Duffy stated: “SpaceX had the contract for Artemis 3 — by the way, I love Space X, an amazing company. The problem is, they’re behind. They push their timelines out and we’re in a race against China. The president and I want to get to the Moon in this president’s term. So I’m gonna open out the contract. I’m gonna let other other space companies compete with SpaceX, like Blue Origin.”

Part of the problem for SpaceX derives from its being a commercial enterprise in a competitive market; While it certainly informs NASA of its progress, it understandably does not prefer to make such knowledge public to inform competitors, which exist in the U.S. and in China!

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