Moon: Washington and Beijing Relaunch the Race

Share:

The facts

On September 3, 2026, a week before the International Space Summit held in Paris (September 9-10, Grand Palais) under the joint presidency of France and Germany, with around 120 countries invited, SpaceX, Blue Origin and the American start-ups Stoke Space and Starcloud announced their withdrawal — under pressure from the White House, according to Politico. An Office of Science and Technology Policy official reportedly told the companies their presence could be seen as tacit support for European Union positions, while also faulting Paris for not coordinating with Washington beforehand. French minister Philippe Baptiste responded that "the United States is welcome — and expected": NASA, NOAA and the U.S. administration remain invited. The ministry nonetheless acknowledged that these withdrawals, hard to separate from the political pressure reported in the press, complicate a cooperation it says it wants to maintain. An episode that, a week apart, sums up rather well the climate surrounding the new race to the Moon: Washington and Beijing are advancing their pieces, each at its own pace, while Europe still struggles to establish itself as a serious third player.

On April 11, 2026, four astronauts had already completed the first crewed flyby of the Moon since 1972, with Artemis II — proof that NASA can still send humans there, just not land them yet. At the same time, China is testing, piece by piece, the rocket, capsule and lander meant to put its own astronauts on the Moon by 2030. After decades of pause since Apollo, both countries insist they really mean to go back this time — and stay. The question several analysts have been asking since this summer is simple: will this new race actually keep its promises, or end up like so many space deadlines before it — without leaving Europe any real place in it?

On the American side, the program is changing shape. Jared Isaacman, a business executive and former private astronaut, took over as NASA Administrator in December 2025. On March 24, 2026, he unveiled a $20 billion, seven-year plan to build a permanent base near the lunar south pole, in three phases: first robots and rovers, then temporary shelters, and finally durable habitats, linked to a small relay station in lunar orbit, the Gateway*. But Artemis III, once meant to land the first astronauts since 1972, no longer will: it has been reduced to a simple docking test in Earth orbit, set for mid-2027. The actual landing has slipped to the next mission — Artemis IV, now targeted for 2028.

This new timeline assumes the rockets cooperate, which is far from guaranteed. SpaceX has to turn its Starship vehicle into the HLS*, the lander meant to put astronauts on the Moon — but it has never yet been refueled in orbit*, a step that's mandatory before it can carry a crew. To hedge against that risk, NASA opened the competition to Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos's company, in October 2025. But Blue Origin has had its own setback: its New Glenn rocket exploded on the ground on May 28, 2026, during a test at Cape Canaveral, due to a faulty valve on one of its engines. The company promises a return to flight before the end of the year.

China is advancing its own roadmap, piece by piece. Its Long March 10 rocket, Mengzhou capsule, Lanyue lander and Wangyu spacesuit all successfully passed a low-altitude abort test in February 2026. An uncrewed test flight, named Mengzhou-1, is set to dock the capsule with China's Tiangong space station before the end of the year. Beijing still aims for a first crewed landing before 2030, a target it has repeated unchanged since the program launched in the mid-2010s, before building, together with Russia, a permanent robotic base — the International Lunar Research Station* (ILRS) — by 2035.

Both countries are eyeing the same region: the lunar south pole, where certain craters, never lit by the Sun, are believed to hold water ice built up over billions of years. A resource seen as decisive in turning a simple planted flag into a lasting presence.

China's Chang'e-7 probe, tasked with confirming and mapping that ice, was due to launch on August 24, 2026 — it was pushed back to 2027 after Typhoon Narra hit the Wenchang launch site. The same setback hit the American side: the small Griffin lander, built by the company Astrobotic for NASA, is due to attempt reaching the same region by the end of 2026, with no guarantee of success. Several milestones over the coming months will already offer a first clue as to which of the three scenarios is taking the lead:

Since 2019, every new administration or NASA official has promised a date for returning to the Moon, and every promised date has ended up slipping — a pattern the chart below confirms. That's why this topic lends itself to three distinct scenarios: either both timelines finally hold this time, or the tests keep advancing without any actual landing for a long while yet, or a technical or budget setback stops one of the two programs cold.