BEIJING — China plans to land astronauts on the moon before 2030, which would be another advance in what’s increasingly seen as a new space race.

The US aims to put astronauts back on the lunar surface by the end of 2025.

Deputy Director of the Chinese Manned Space Agency Lin Xiqiang confirmed China’s goal at a news conference Monday, May 29, 2023, but gave no specific date.

Lin also said China plans to expand its orbiting crewed space station with an additional module. A new three-person crew is scheduled to head to the Tiangong station on Tuesday, May 30, aboard the Shenzhou 16 craft and will overlap briefly with the three astronauts already aboard.

The fresh crew includes a civilian for the first time. All previous crew members have been in the People’s Liberation Army, the military wing of the country’s ruling Communist Party.

Gui Haichao, a professor at Beijing’s top aerospace research institute, will join mission commander Jing Haipeng and spacecraft engineer Zhu Yangzhu as the payload expert.

China completed the Tiangong space station in November with the third of three modules, centered on the Tianhe living and command module.

China’s first manned space mission in 2003 made it the third country after the former Soviet Union and the US to put a person into space./ AP