China’s ambitious lunar exploration program has marked a key milestone, with the China Manned Space Agency confirming on Friday that the Chang’e 7 lunar probe is on track for launch in the second half of 2026. The mission’s spacecraft has already completed its journey to the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site, located on China’s southern tropical island province of Hainan, where pre-launch integration and testing procedures will proceed according to the pre-approved timeline.
As one of the most anticipated missions in China’s expanding deep space exploration roadmap, Chang’e 7 carries forward the legacy of China’s earlier Chang’e program missions, which have already achieved landmark feats including the first soft landing on the far side of the moon and the first Chinese sample return from lunar surface. The upcoming mission is expected to advance global scientific understanding of the moon’s polar regions, an area that remains poorly mapped and studied by previous exploration efforts.
The Wenchang site, China’s newest coastal launch facility, was selected for the mission due to its unique geographic advantages, including lower latitude positioning that improves launch vehicle efficiency and capacity for large payloads. It has served as the launch site for many of China’s recent high-profile deep space and space station missions, making it the logical hub for this next step in lunar research.