China Selects International Payloads for Chang’e-8 Lunar Mission

China’s next big Moon mission, Chang’e-8, is shaping up as an international affair, with foreign experiments hitching a ride to the lunar South Pole.

A New Chapter In Lunar Cooperation

In a move that signals growing ambitions and openness, China has selected a suite of international experiments to fly aboard its upcoming Chang’e-8 lunar mission, which will target the Moon’s south pole in 2028.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced it had picked proposals from 12 countries, including France, Italy, Russia, and Switzerland, alongside missions from Asia, South America, and Africa. These payloads will ride alongside Chinese instruments on what is expected to be a key step toward establishing a permanent lunar base.

The Chang’e-8 mission isn’t just about planting another flag — it’s about testing the technologies needed to support human life off Earth. And now, thanks to these selections, it’s also about building bridges between China’s program and the wider world.

What Will The International Experiments Do?

Among the selected payloads are a range of scientific experiments:

• Life sciences projects that study how organisms behave under lunar conditions.
• Advanced materials tests aimed at figuring out how Moon dust and radiation affect structures over time.
• Environmental monitoring systems to track conditions at the lunar south pole, where permanent human presence may one day be possible.

In particular, one proposal from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology focuses on dust mitigation technologies — a crucial challenge, given that lunar dust is notorious for its abrasiveness and danger to equipment.

The selected experiments will fly aboard Chang’e-8’s lander or rover, depending on their nature and mission design. Some may even test In-Situ Resource Utilisation (ISRU) — technologies that could extract oxygen or water from lunar soil, which is vital for any future Moon base.

China’s Long Game: The ILRS

Chang’e-8 is part of a broader, much bigger plan: the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), a long-term project led by China and Russia to build a permanent facility near the Moon’s south pole by the 2030s.

By inviting international participation now, China seems willing to lead and share in this next space exploration phase. It also provides an alternative to NASA’s Artemis Accords framework, which many traditional U.S. partners have signed onto.

For countries not yet aligned with Artemis, joining Chang’e-8 and the ILRS program could offer another political and scientific pathway to the Moon.

Who’s Missing From The Guest List?

Notably absent are the United States and most European Space Agency (ESA) member states. Due to U.S. regulations — particularly ITAR restrictions on sharing space technology with China — American institutions are effectively barred from participating.

Still, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher has previously indicated that Europe remains open to possible future collaboration with China, although that would require careful navigation of political and regulatory waters.

Meanwhile, Chang’e-8 is attracting a diverse group of players, from emerging space nations to major science institutions looking for opportunities to test technology on the Moon.

Conclusion

With Chang’e-8, China is not just aiming for the lunar surface but reaching out across borders. Beijing is positioning itself as a central hub for future lunar exploration by opening its next major Moon mission to international science.

As the race to the Moon’s south pole heats up, collaboration, not just competition, may well define who gets to stay for the long haul.