By 2035 Russia and China they want to complete the construction of a nuclear reactor on the Moon, which would ensure energy to research and explore the planet.

What do you need to know:

China and Russia are planning the construction of a nuclear power plant in the Moon by 2035, with the aim of providing energy on a permanent basis on the planet: the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS).

The ILRS program will be based on the power plant for its scientific research.

The ILRS program includes more than ten international partners and is considered a competitive venture in NASA’s “Artemis program”.

Russia and China’s space service (Roscosmos and CNSA respectively) signed a Memorandum of Understanding this week.

The nuclear station will be part of the ILRS base and provide energy for the long -term exploration of the Moon and related scientific research. At the same time, it is also regarded as a “competitor” to the American “Artemis” program, which relates to the construction of the “Gateway” space station in an orbit around the Moon from 2027-in “ARTEMIS” participates beyond NASA and space services of 55 other states, including European Member States.

What is Ilrs?

The ILRS program aims to create a lunar base for scientific research, which will be 100 kilometers from the South Pole of the Moon.

The ILRS will carry out both long -term autonomous companies and human missions of short duration.

“At the base, space will be carried out and technologies will be tested for long -term businesses without a human crew, with the prospect of a man on the Moon,” Roscosmos said.

The ILRS program, which was announced in 2017, includes Pakistan, Venezuela, Belarus, Azerbaijan, South Africa, Egypt, Nicaragua, Thailand, Serbia, Senegal and Kazakhstan. China will also invite 50 states, 500 international scientific research institutes and thousands of researchers to participate in the program.

Although the ILRS base seeks to be a center of scientific research, the natural resources of the Moon are also an attractive perspective for participating states. The Moon has valuable metal oxides, regolithic (lunar soil), rare earth metals and possibly large amounts of sunglasses, which is valuable for nuclear fusion. The exploitation of lunar resources has been intensely concerned with the legal world.

China as a leading force in space

ILRS is a pivotal pillar of China plans to emerge as a leader in scientific research and space exploration.

The construction of the station is expected to begin in 2028. Since 2013 many Chinese unmanned boats have been attracted – and Chinese scientists are leading the lunar surface mapping, including the “dark side of the Moon”, that is, the lunar hemisphere.

In June 2024, China became the first country to have managed to collect rocks from this hemisphere. The news agency Xinhua had then spoke of an “unprecedented achievement in the history of the human exploration of the Moon”.

Curated by: George Passas