As Beijing finalizes its plans for long-term lunar colonization, China will investigate employing 3D printing technology to create structures on the moon, according to a story published on Monday in the official China Daily.

China’s first lunar soil samples were returned to Earth by an unmanned probe during the Chang’e 5 lunar mission, which will launch in 2020 and is named after the lunar goddess of Chinese mythology. By 2030, China, which accomplished its first lunar landing in 2013, hopes to send an astronaut there.
China will launch the Chang’e 6, 7 and 8 missions between now and then; the latter’s aim is to search the moon for reusable materials for long-term human habitation.

According to China Daily, which cited Wu Weiren, a scientist at the China National Space Administration, the Chang’e 8 probe would undertake on-site examinations of the environment and mineral composition and also investigate if technologies like 3D printing can be used on the lunar surface.

Wu added, “We need to build stations using the moon’s own resources if we want to stay on the moon for a long time.”

In five years, China plans to begin constructing a lunar base using lunar soil, according to reports in Chinese media this month.

An analyst from the Chinese Academy of Engineering predicts that during the Chang’e 8 mission, around 2028, a robot charged with creating “lunar soil bricks” will be launched.

In recent years, especially with the United States, the competition to land on the moon has gotten more intense.

Four astronauts were named this month for the Artemis II mission, which is scheduled for late 2024 and will be the first manned lunar flyby in many years.