Chinese Space Agency: what is China's space program and what are their future projects?

The Chinese Space Agency (CNSA) is a government agency of the People's Republic of China, and is headquartered in Haidian, Beijing where it is responsible for civil space administration and international space cooperation. 

The CNSA operates under the administrative agency of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. But since it was founded in 1993, what has the CNSA achieved and what are its plans for the future? Here is what you need to know. 

Who are the Chinese National Space Administration? 

CNSA was created when the Ministry of Aerospace Industry was split into CNSA and the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC). The former was to be responsible for policy, while the latter was to be responsible for execution, however a restructuring in 1998, CASC was split into a number of smaller state-owned companies. 

Despite only being 30 years old, the CNSA has achieved some remarkable milestones. The agency was the first nation to land on the far side of the Moon with their spacecraft Chang'e 4, bringing material back from the Moon with Chang'e 5, and the second agency that successfully landed a rover on Mars with Tianwen-1.

China has signed governmental space cooperation agreements with Argentina, Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, India, Italy, Pakistan, Russia, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States, and some other countries.

What are the China National Space Administration's future projects?

The Tiangong Space Station is one of two permanently crewed space stations, with the other being the International Space Station. The Chinese station sits in low Earth orbit between 340 and 450 km (210 and 280 mi) above the surface and is China's first long-term space station as it aims to provide opportunities for space-based experiments and a platform for building capacity for scientific and technological innovation.

The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, also known as Chang'e, after the Chinese Moon goddess Chang'e, is an ongoing series of robotic Moon missions incorporating lunar orbiters, landers, rovers and sample return spacecraft. The final phase of the program is expected to launch in the near future, to explore the topography, composition and subsurface structure of the lunar South Pole–Aitken basin.

In terms of human spaceflight, China has developed the next-generation crewed spacecraft, a reusable spacecraft. The carrier is designed to ferry astronauts to the Chinese space station and will conduct lunar exploration in conjunction with China's future lunar lander by the end of this decade. As of 2023, China's goal is to land astronauts on the Moon by 2030.