
The first Venezuelan man or woman could land on the moon on a Chinese spacecraft, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said last week. Maduro met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Sept. 13, during a state visit that saw the two countries sign a host of agreements to extend cooperation, covering areas such as oil, trade, mining, finance and space.
The visit included Zhang Kejian, administrator of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), and Gabriela Jimenez, Venezuela's Vice President and Minister of Science and Technology, signing a space cooperation framework agreement, which was witnessed by the two presidents.
China's space endeavours have expanded greatly in scope over the past decade. The country became only the third to successfully soft-land on the moon in 2013, put a rover on Mars and constructed a modular space station, named Tiangong, in low Earth orbit.
Beijing is now looking to build an alliance of countries to explore and potentially exploit the moon, parallel and counter to the United States-led Artemis program and Artemis Accords.
Venezuela became the first outside nation to join the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) project, which was jointly announced by China and Russia in 2021.
China has previously stated that it is looking to train international astronauts at its China Astronaut Research and Training Center in Beijing. China wants to put a pair of its astronauts on the moon before 2030. The ILRS is to be constructed across the early 2030s. This timeline means, however, that it will be some time before Chinese spacecraft carry international astronauts to the moon.
Edited by : www.linkedin.com/in/priyanka-v23
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