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China National Space Administration (CNSA) on Friday outlined plans for this year’s China Space Day celebrations while unveiling a series of major missions for 2026, including crewed Shenzhou spacecraft flights and flight tests for multiple reusable rockets. A Chinese expert said the agenda shows that both state-led and commercial space programs are advancing rapidly, with lunar exploration expected to become a key focus in the next stage of development.
International cooperation missions were also highlighted at the press briefing. China and Europe will launch the Solar Wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE), a joint satellite project aimed at revealing the interaction processes and patterns between the solar wind and Earth’s magnetosphere. China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite cooperation will also continue, extending nearly four decades of friendship and collaboration between the two countries.
Officials said this year marks the 11th China Space Day and coincides with the 70th anniversary of China’s space industry. Main events will be held around April 24 in Chengdu, Southwest China’s Sichuan Province.
The program will include science popularization exhibitions, the China Space Conference and a series of technical exchange activities. Leaders and academicians from central government departments, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Engineering, universities and aerospace enterprises are expected to attend, alongside foreign guests from 26 countries, regions and international organizations. Brazil has been invited as the guest country of honor.
At the briefing, Liu Yunfeng, an official with the CNSA, introduced several major tasks planned for 2026. He said Tianwen-2 will approach its target asteroid and carry out close-range exploration. China’s manned space program will implement missions including the Shenzhou-23 crewed spacecraft. Multiple types of reusable rockets will undergo flight verification tests, while commercial aerospace will pursue high-quality development under high-standard safety guarantees.
“China has a number of important space missions ahead, and both the national program and commercial space sector are advancing rapidly,” Kang Guohua, a senior member of the Chinese Society of Astronautics and a professor of Aerospace Engineering at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, told the Global Times on Friday.
“At the national level, Tianwen-2 will carry out asteroid sampling tasks, while Chang’e-7 will launch for lunar exploration. It can be expected that a series of lunar missions will become a major focus of China’s next phase of space development,” Kang said.
On the commercial side, recoverable and reusable rockets will remain a major point of attention, he said.
“Commercial aerospace will continue experiments involving recoverable rockets. Once technical verification succeeds, I believe it will quickly drive an expansion of private-sector space delivery capabilities,” Kang added.
On international cooperation, Liu said the China-Europe SMILE mission is intended to reveal the interaction process and changing patterns between the solar wind and magnetosphere, while the China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite program will continue to deepen long-standing bilateral ties.
Speaking to media, Liu said China-Brazil space cooperation is regarded as a model of “South-South cooperation” in high-technology fields.
He said the CNSA and the Brazilian Space Agency have signed multiple cooperation plans. The China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite program, launched in 1988, created a successful precedent for cooperation in the aerospace field among developing countries, serving the socioeconomic development of both nations and effectively promoting advances in space science and technology.
Liu said satellite data has benefited countries across Latin America, Africa and Asia, contributing positively to the progress of human civilization.
He added that with Brazil invited as the guest country of honor for this year’s China Space Day, the two sides will deepen cooperation, including advancing the CBERS-06 satellite as scheduled and refining technical plans for CBERS-05.
“China’s space program is unlike many Western-led projects that tend to involve a narrower group of developed countries cooperating mainly among themselves,” Kang said.
“After developing its own capabilities, China has extended benefits for developing countries such as Brazil and Pakistan. For example, China previously announced it would arrange for one Pakistani astronaut to carry out a short-term mission as a payload specialist, while maintaining long-term cooperation with Brazil,” he said.
Kang added that China has also maintained cooperation with Europe in the space sector, citing SMILE as an example, and said China has consistently attached importance to international collaboration in aerospace.