Russia and China on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding to create a space station on the moon, according to Russia’s Roscosmos space agency, after Moscow dropped out of the US Artemis lunar program.
The document was signed by Roscosmos chief executive Dmitri Rogozin and China’s National Space Administration (CNSA) director Zhang Kejian.
Roscosmos and CNSA “will cooperate in the creation of the lunar base, with open access to all interested countries and international partners,” the Russian space agency said in a statement.
The goal of Russia and China is to “strengthen interaction in scientific research and promote the study and use of space for peaceful purposes for the benefit of all mankind.”
In mid-2020, Rogozin publicly announced that Moscow had given up participation in the US Artemis lunar program, which envisions the return of humans to the moon in 2024, because that program had become a “major political project.”
Rogozin assured that Russia is opposed to the privatization and commercial exploitation of the Moon, as proposed last year by then US President Donald Trump.
Russia, the first country to send a man into space in 1961, plans to launch a manned mission to the Moon starting in 2031. China achieved a historic milestone last December when the Chang’e 5 probe landed on the visible side of the Moon, already following the achievement of Chang’e 4, which landed on the hidden side of the Moon in January 2019.
