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China and Russia will sign an agreement to build a research station on the moon, officials at the Chinese space agency said
China has confirmed it's joining forces with Russia to build a research station on the moon by 2035, which will rival NASA's Lunar Gateway.
Confirmation of plans to build the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) came on Friday from officials at China National Space Administration (CNSA), the country's national space agency.
Russia and China aim to complete basic infrastructure construction for ILRS by 2035, Wu Yanhua, CNSA deputy director, told a briefing in Beijing.
ILRS will rival NASA's Lunar Gateway, which is set to play a 'vital' role in the US space agency's upcoming Artemis program.
However, NASA's Lunar Gateway will only orbit the moon, while ILRS will have both an orbiter and a base on the lunar surface, as well as multiple exploration rovers.
The next step for Russia and China is infrastructure construction, which includes systems for energy, communication and life support on the moon base, Bloomberg Quint reports. The ILRS project will be open to other countries to join.
'We welcome the extensive participation of international colleagues,' Wu said on Friday.
It follows authorities from Moscow and Beijing signing a memorandum of understanding in March 2021 to launch the project.
The base, the memorandum said, would be 'designed to conduct multidisciplinary and multipurpose research work'.
Russia previously expressed interest in collaborating on NASA's Lunar Gateway program, and an informal joint statement was signed by both Roscosmos (Russia's space agency) and NASA on September 27, 2017.
However, Roscosmos formally announced in January 2021 that it would ultimately not be participating in the program.
Described as a 'vital component of NASA’s Artemis program, the Lunar Gateway will be a small space station orbiting the moon, acting as a 'multi-purpose outpost'.
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