THE NEW SPACE RACE: China plans 2026 debut of new rocket for crewed lunar and LEO missions The Lo
THE NEW SPACE RACE: China plans 2026 debut of new rocket for crewed lunar and LEO missions
The Long March 10 and Long March 10A are being developed as part of China’s next-generation human spaceflight plans. The former, a three-stage rocket featuring a triple-core first stage with 5.0-meter-diameter cores, is designed to launch a new crew spacecraft (Mengzhou) and a separate lunar lander into translunar orbit as part of plans to land Chinese astronauts on the moon before 2030.
The latter, the 10A, is a two-stage, single-stick variant for low Earth orbit (LEO) launches, designed to send a LEO variant of Mengzhou to the Tiangong space station. LEO Mengzhou is designed to be partially reusable and can carry more astronauts to Tiangong.
China’s human spaceflight agency, CMSEO, hinted in October at a planned first flight of the Long March 10 and the Mengzhou spacecraft in 2026, with a logo design competition for the Mengzhou-1 crew spacecraft mission.
CALT’s statement does not make clear if the debut flight will be crewed or uncrewed, nor did it explicitly state the mission will be an integrated launch of the Long March 10A and Mengzhou spacecraft.
When’s that next Starship flight test, Elon?



