Mengzhou performed as designed during the test, which lifted off from the Wenchang Space Launch Site on Hainan Island. The capsule successfully maneuvered itself away from its Long March 10<\/a> rocket and splashed down in the ocean under parachutes, showcasing capabilities that would be needed in the event of a launch emergency.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n \n China’s Mengzhou crew capsule aced a key abort test on Feb. 10, 2026. The Long March 10 rocket that launched the test successfully steered itself to an ocean splashdown as well. (Image credit: CCTV)<\/p>\n The Long March 10 is a key piece of China’s moon plans as well: It’s a new heavy lifter that will launch the nation’s astronauts to Earth’s nearest neighbor. And the rocket aced an important trial of its own on Wednesday.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Long March 10’s first stage is designed to be reusable, like that of SpaceX<\/a>‘s workhorse Falcon 9<\/a> rocket. On Wednesday, the booster guided itself to a powered, vertical splashdown in the ocean after Mengzhou went its separate way.<\/p>\n The Long March 10 is still in development, and Wednesday’s flight did not come close to reaching orbit. But the rocket<\/a>‘s splashdown success was still a major milestone on the road to recovery and reuse.<\/p>\n \n Artist’s illustration of astronauts on the moon planting a Chinese flag. (Image credit: 3DSculptori\/Stock\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n China has also made progress recently<\/a> with its crewed lunar lander, a vehicle named Lanyue. As a result, many space experts give the nation a real chance of winning the crewed race back to the lunar surface.<\/p>\n NASA aims to put boots on the moon in 2028 on the Artemis 3<\/a> mission, which will use a modified version of SpaceX’s Starship<\/a> vehicle as its lander. But it’s unclear if the mission will be able to meet that timeline.<\/p>\n A lot depends, for example, on the success of Artemis 2<\/a>, a crewed trip around the moon that could launch as soon as next month. Artemis 2 will employ NASA’s Space Launch System<\/a> rocket and Orion capsule but will not incorporate Starship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China just took another step toward landing astronauts on the moon. On Wednesday (Feb. 11) local time, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-279959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"photo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Fa7M2wF6obe8XhzfXUxmX5.jpg\")
\n<\/p>\n![\"astronauts](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Yxs7FVNobFmitS8AA74wck.jpg\")
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