China has launched a new three-member astronaut crew to its Tiangong space station as the country pushes ahead with its plan to land humans on the moon by 2030. The Shenzhou-23 spacecraft lifted off on Sunday at 11:08 p.m. from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China aboard a Long March-2F Y23 rocket. The mission is significant because one of the astronauts will stay in space for a full year, the longest mission duration ever planned by China.

The mission aims to help Chinese scientists study how the human body reacts to long stays in space. Researchers will observe the effects of radiation, bone density loss and psychological stress during the extended mission. The China Manned Space Agency said the astronaut who will remain on the Tiangong station for one year will be selected later, depending on the mission’s progress.

The Shenzhou-23 crew includes commander Zhu Yangzhu, pilot Zhang Yuanzhi and payload specialist Li Jiaying. Li has become the first astronaut from Hong Kong to join a Chinese space mission. Zhu and Zhang are both members of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) astronaut division.

China has carried out nearly a dozen crewed missions to its Tiangong space station in recent years. However, the latest launch comes at a time when competition between China and the United States over lunar exploration is growing rapidly. The U.S. has accused Beijing of planning to dominate lunar territory and resources in the future. Beijing has strongly rejected these claims.

NASA is targeting a crewed moon landing in 2028 through its Artemis programme, two years ahead of China’s publicly announced timeline. The U.S. also plans to establish a long-term human presence on the moon before moving towards human missions to Mars.

In April, four NASA astronauts travelled around the moon as part of the Artemis II mission. It was the first crewed lunar mission in nearly 50 years and carried humans farther from Earth than ever before. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s SpaceX conducted a largely successful test flight of its Starship rocket on Friday. The spacecraft is expected to support future NASA moon missions and increase Starlink satellite launches.

China faces major technical challenges before it can achieve its 2030 goal. The country is developing new systems, hardware and software needed specifically for a crewed moon landing. Chinese astronauts have so far worked mainly in low-Earth orbit aboard Tiangong. A moon mission will require them to travel much farther and operate in riskier conditions on the lunar surface.

Since 2021, China’s Shenzhou missions have regularly carried teams of three astronauts to Tiangong for six-month stays. China is also training two Pakistani astronauts, and one of them may join a future mission to the space station later this year for a short visit.

The previous Shenzhou-22 mission was launched earlier than planned in November after the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft suffered damage from space debris while in orbit. The replacement mission safely brought three astronauts back to Earth.

China has not yet sent humans to the moon, but it has made rapid progress in robotic lunar missions. In June 2024, China became the first country to collect and return samples from the far side of the moon using robotic technology. A successful crewed landing before 2030 would also support Beijing’s larger plan to establish a permanent lunar base with Russia by 2035.

Wu Weiren, the chief scientist of China’s lunar programme, has said Beijing’s public timeline is intentionally conservative. Over the past year, Chinese authorities have carried out several safety tests involving key equipment planned for the moon mission. These include the heavy-lift Long March-10 rocket, the Mengzhou spacecraft and the Lanyue lunar lander.

The Shenzhou-23 mission will also perform the first autonomous rapid rendezvous and docking operation with Tiangong’s core module. This test is important because China’s future moon mission will depend on a similar automated docking procedure in lunar orbit between the Mengzhou capsule and the Lanyue lander.

China is also expanding its biological and medical research in space. State media recently reported that the country has launched the world’s first human “artificial embryo” experiment in orbit. Human stem cell samples were sent to the Tiangong station earlier this month during the Shenzhou-22 mission. Scientists hope the research will help them understand long-term human survival, reproduction and living conditions in space.