Nation's space journey continues apace

On the moon, the astronauts will drive a rover to carry out scientific tasks and collect samples. Upon completion of their assignments, they will return to the Lanyue module, which will fly them back to their spaceship waiting in lunar orbit.

Finally, the astronauts will carry the samples into their Mengzhou spacecraft, which will then undock and carry the crew back to Earth.

To prepare for the challenging adventure, China has selected its fourth group of astronauts, who are learning knowledge and skills to be used in lunar operations.

If everything goes according to plan, China will become the second nation in the world, after the US, to have sent humans to the moon. The US made six Apollo crewed missions in the 1960s and 1970s, taking 12 Americans to the silver celestial neighbor.

In the long term, the country intends to construct a lunar scientific outpost to conduct extended explorations and technology demonstration operations, according to Zhang Hailian, deputy chief planner at the China Manned Space Agency.

"The moon is the nearest extraterrestrial body that humans can reach based on current technologies. Manned missions to the moon will be a realistic and practical step... to start with (in order) to expand our exploration endeavors in deep space. Meanwhile, it is scientifically meaningful for us to continue to explore the moon because it will help scientists better understand the origin and the evolution of the solar system as well as the composition of planets," he said.