Space News| Space News

China is planning to begin building a moon base by using soil collected from the Moon in five year.

China is exploring the use of 3D printing to build buildings on the Moon as Beijing continues to solidify plans for long-term lunar settlement.

In the 2020 Chinese lunar mission – the Chang’e 5, named after the mythical Chinese goddess of the moon – an unmanned probe took back to Earth China’s first lunar soil samples.

China, who made its first landing on the moon in 2013, plans to land a astronaut on Moon by 2030.

Between now and then, China will launch the Chang’e 6, 7 and 8 missions, with the latter tasked to look for reusable resources on the moon for long-term human habitation.

The Chang’e 8 will conduct on-site investigations of the environment and mineral composition, and also determine whether technologies such as 3D printing can be deployed on the lunar surface, China Daily reported on Monday quoting Wu Weiren, a scientist at the China National Space Administration.

“If we wish to stay on the moon for a long time, we need to set up stations by using the moon’s own materials,” Wu said in a recent interview.

“Lunar soil will be our raw material, and it will be printed into construction units,” he added.

Chinese media said earlier this month that China intends to begin building a moon base by using soil from the Moon in five year.

A robot tasked with making “lunar soil bricks” will be launched during the Chang’e 8 mission around 2028, according to an expert from the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Recent years have seen a heightened interest in the race to the moon. This is especially true for the United States.

This month NASA and Canada’s space agency named four astronauts for the Artemis II mission planned for late 2024, in what would be the first human fly-by of the moon in decades.