On April 24, 2025, at the opening ceremony of China’s Cosmonautics Day, the Chang’E-8 automatic lunar station project was officially presented. The scientific program of the mission included two instruments developed by the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IKI RAS). They were selected as part of cooperation between Roscosmos and the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA).
In total, the Chang’E-8 scientific equipment will include instruments from 11 countries. They were selected from more than 40 applications submitted to an international competition launched in October 2023.
IKI RAS developed for the mission:
– Ion energy-mass analyzer ALIEN-CE8 – for studying the lunar exosphere.
– Experiment LPDE-CE8 – to study the plasma-dust environment of the Moon.
These devices are created on the basis of technologies incorporated in the equipment of the Luna-27 mission (ARIES and PML). For the first time, similar devices will operate simultaneously on spacecraft in Russia and China, which will make it possible to carry out comparative measurements at different points on the Moon. This will significantly expand the scientific data of the missions Chang’E-8, Luna 27 and the future International Lunar Research Station (ILRS).
The device is planned to be landed in the south polar region of the Moon, near the Leibniz Beta mountains. The launch is scheduled for 2029.
This mission is an important step towards the creation of the MNL. Russia and China signed an agreement on the joint project on November 25, 2022.
Source: iki.cosmos.ru
