The sunrise casts a golden glow on the Artemis I Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft. – NASA/TNS
SPURRED to action by China’s sudden advances in space exploration, former President Donald Trump’s administration in 2017 launched the Artemis programme, which began with an un-crewed orbital mission in 2022.
American space agency Nasa plans for a crew to orbit the moon this year with Artemis II. Then, in September 2026 – two years later than initially anticipated – Artemis III plans to return a crew to the moon for the first time in over 53 years, including the first woman and first person of color.
But a senior Nasa official said in a public meeting last summer that “difficulties” facing SpaceX, the private company building the spacecraft Nasa plans to use for the Artemis III mission, could cause further delays.
SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft has never successfully flown in orbit, and must do so several times before flying Artemis III for Nasa. Setbacks in the programme last year have been mocked and celebrated on Chinese state media. SpaceX declined multiple requests for comment.
If Starship fails to meet the moment, Washington may well lose the immediate race to the moon and have to start over on its planning architecture for Mars. SpaceX is expected to attempt a third orbital launch in March.
Nasa has also been non-committal on its plans for a lunar base.
As recently as 2022, the agency said it planned to establish an Artemis Base Camp at the south pole by the end of the decade. But it has since gone quiet on the plan. Nasa’s most recent budget to Congress referenced a “foundation surface habitat” at the south pole as a “key element” for future missions, but offered no timeline.
Nasa said it is still working to “develop the infrastructure needed for a long-term human presence” and provided no new schedule for the outpost, other than to say that, after returning humans to the moon, missions beyond Artemis IV in 2028 will establish an “annual launch cadence.”
But if China continues to meet its own timeline, as the US intelligence community expects, then by 2028, its Chang’e 8 mission will have already begun laying the foundation of their base at the south pole – and the stage for a potential battle over sovereignty, location and lunar resources.
“To do all of this, you need energy. And there are some tiny slivers of land right alongside suspected water in the permanent shadows – I’m talking about a few thousand acres – that are in near-continuous sunlight,” said Nasa’s first Mars czar, G Scott Hubbard. “Both the United States and China are aiming for those peaks of eternal light as a base.”
There is no precedent for such a conflict and no laws to govern it outside a 1967 treaty widely seen as thin and unenforceable, said Thomas Roberts, adjunct fellow with the CSIS Aerospace Security Project.
“Both actors want to go to the same small region of the lunar surface at the same time,” Roberts said.
“If you were to land another lunar lander somewhere near an existing site, the physical nature of the lunar regolith would inspire a debris cloud that could really tamper with sensitive instrumentation.”
“That’s totally fine if your goal is to visit the far side of the moon, which is the size of an ocean,” he added.
“It’s less fine if you’re looking for particular properties of lunar rotation that happen in a tiny fraction of territory.”
US officials are increasingly concerned that, should it achieve dominance at the south pole, China could indeed attempt to deny physical access to the US and its partners, limiting their ability to sustain a permanent presence on the surface or reach rare minerals and isotopes increasingly scarce at home.
“We believe they will try to exploit lunar activity to the max,” one of the US intelligence officials said.
“China may have the ability to create an advantageous position to influence the movement of other powers, including the US, to and around the moon.”
Washington has tried to create a new set of rules to govern this otherwise untamed frontier, drafting the Artemis Accords to “set out a practical set of principles to guide space exploration,” according to the State Department.
The list of signatories has grown to 32 nations. China is not among them.
Instead, Beijing has recruited a small list of countries to join its lunar base programme including Russia, Venezuela, Pakistan, South Africa and Belarus.
Three senior Biden administration officials said the White House believes there is still time to “shape the environment” for what kind of behavior the world will accept from the future of space travel.
“The next few years – and especially the next year or two – is going to be about the US continuing to exert leadership to set the norms and standards that we want, and aligning with our partners,” one senior official said.
Another senior administration official described the prospect of “keep-out zones” on the moon as a “pressing topic” frequently discussed at the White House.
But a law called the Wolf Amendment, passed during the Obama administration amid revelations that Beijing had used information from satellite companies to advance its ballistic missile technology, bans officials from Nasa and the White House from directly engaging with China on space matters.
“We do envision that those types of discussions will eventually happen,” the second senior administration official said.
“But I think right now, we’re really focused on being able to develop our capabilities and our technologies and our programmes. And I have to believe the Chinese are similarly focused.”
In Congress, lawmakers on the intelligence committees have been briefed on China’s plans and are pressing Nasa to meet its deadlines, Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas, the top Republican on the Appropriations Subcommittee with jurisdiction over Nasa, said in an interview.
“As Americans – perhaps in part out of pride, but out of national security and economic benefit – we do not want to see China plant a flag on the moon or be in deep outer space, including Mars,” Moran said. — TNS
