China postpones Chang’e-7 mission to explore Moon’s south pole

China postponed the planned launch of its highly ambitious Chang’e-7 lunar exploration mission, which will target a search for water ice and research the lunar south pole’s environment and resources, The Hindu reported.

According to an announcement made by the China Manned Space Agency on Sunday, as the launch conditions have not been met, the mission “cannot go up as scheduled within this year”, and its postponement came as a “fully reasoned evaluation of reliability and absolute mission success on principles of caution”. More detailed explanation wasn’t given.

It was scheduled for the spacecraft to take off in a couple of days on a Long March-5 rocket from the Wenchang Space Launch Site on the tropical island of Hainan. However, any future launch date has not been announced by Chinese officials so far.

In scope, Chang’e-7 is to survey areas near the south pole, with permanent shadows that could have water ice deposits, by an orbiter, a lander, a rover and a hopper device that will do various environmental and resource studies.

Chang’e-7, which is the 7th in China’s 10-year-long Chang’e mission series on the moon exploring its surface and its resources, will now need further work. With this endeavour, China aims for a permanent presence on the moon and has targeted sending astronauts on the lunar surface before 2030.

The last-minute cancellation of the scheduled launch came after extensive work by numerous individuals at Wenchang to prepare and place the spacecraft and the rocket for launch to happen in a few days’ time.