China may be plotting Moon 'takeover' as part of its military space programme, says NASA

China National Space ministration, state owned space corporation, may be planning a “takeover” of Moon as part of its military space program, NASA’s ministrator Bill Nelson has told newspaper Bild. During  interview Nelson affirmed that  United States was involved in  space race with Beijing.

In 2035, he iterated, China will complete construction of its own Moon station, and will launch several moon programmes.  79-year-old NASA ministrator acknowledged that American space ministration has, in fact, been "very concerned" about China's landing on Moon and its agenda of hijacking Moon

For first time, China Chang'e 4 lunar lander successfully grew plants on Moon under its ambitious lunar mission, giving a competitive edge to NASA. Lunar biosphere experiment was conducted in partnership with 28 Chinese universities. Photographs released by China National Space ministration demonstrated a budding cotton seed sprouting into a biological matter, in a first instance of its kind. lunar development marked " completion of humankind's first biological experiment on Moon" for China, ruling Communist Party's mouthpiece People's Daily said on Twitter.

China managed to grow plants out of rapeseed and potato seeds but   cotton seeds were first to sprout, Professor Liu Hanlong of Chongqing University, was quoted telling South China Morning Post paper. 

China's Yutu 2 rover, as seen by Chang'e 4 lander, on far side of moon. Image credit: CNSA

China lands on far side of Moon: Von Kármán crater

In a first far side landing, China's Chang'e-4 mission delivered Yutu-2 rover on Von Kármán crater, within Moon's South Pole-Aitken basin, a region where no human or NASA robot has ventured before. Beijing's 'secretive' Moon mission landed on December 7, 2019. Chang'e-4 represented  first time that a country managed to land a soft lander on far side of Moon, as well as deploy a rover to explore on lunar far side, Notre Dame planetary scientist Clive Neal, reportedly said.

In 1959, far side of Moon was first imaged by Soviet Luna 3 spacecraft and hence re are Russian names for prominent farside features, such as Mare Moscoviense. Past studies by NASA have revealed that crust on farside is thicker, likely making it more difficult for magmas to erupt on surface, limiting amount of farside mare basalts. NASA has yet to land on this region of Moon as it may be challenging to maintain communication with Earth due to disruption to rio signals. China became first nation to bypass this issue by fixing a relay satellite on Chang'e-4 mission.