02 February 2019
With the historic success of its Chang’e 4 lunar mission, China opened a new chapter in lunar exploration and sent a clear declaration of intent about its long-term ambition to send astronauts back to the Moon. European countries, which will gather this year to agree on ESA’s future programmes, now need to carefully reflect on the consequences of Chinese lunar plans and define what role they want to play in the post-ISS space exploration context.
This ESPI Brief sheds outlines the possible implications brought by China’s expanding ambitions in the field human spaceflight and discusses European preparedness to cope with such implications.
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