China plans to conduct a Moon mission and crew rotation in under a week?

China has three major events happening in its space program at the of April and beginning of May. These three events are; the launch of Shenzhou-18 to the Tiangong Space Station, the return of the Shenzhou-17 crew to Earth, and the launch of the Chang'e 6 lunar far-side sample return mission.

The first of these three is the launch of Shenzhou-18 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center atop of a Long March 2F launch vehicle. Despite the crew still not being known to anyone outside of the China Manned Space Agency, the Long March 2F launch vehicle for the mission was rolled out to its launch pad on the 17th ahead of the mission.

The Long March 2F will carry the three taikonauts aboard the Shenzhou spacecraft into low Earth orbit where they will chase down the Tiangong Space Station. The three unannounced crew are expected to be greeted by Tang Hongbo, Tang Shengjie, and Jiang Xinlin who are currently on board for the six-month Shenzhou-17 mission. The current expected time from launch to docking is still believed to be six hours, docking will occur at the nadir port of the Tianhe module of the space station.

Planned a few days after the arrival of the Shenzhou-18 crew aboard the Tiangong Space Station, the three taikonauts of the Shenzhou-17 crew are expected to return to Earth.

The crew, Tang Hongbo, Tang Shengjie, and Jiang Xinlin, have been onboard the space station since October 26th of 2023, and have spent almost six months aboard in microgravity. While onboard, the trio has conducted two spacewalks and completed dozens of science experiments. Tang Hongbo also set a record for time spent in space by a citizen of China during the mission, having spent 268 days in space at the time of writing.

China Manned Space Agency has not announced when the Shenzhou-17 mission will return, but it is expected to be before the end of April. Shenzhou-17 was Tang Hongbo's second spaceflight, with it being the first for Tang Shengjie and Jiang Xinlin.

The last of the three events planned to occur is the launch of the Chang'e 6 lunar far-side sample return mission. Chang'e 6 is the latest part of China's Lunar Exploration Program and the second mission for it this year, Queqiao-2 launched back in late March. The mission is expected to bring back approximately 2,000 grams of surface samples.

Parts of the launch vehicle, the Long March 5, are already at the Wenchang Space Launch Site, and likely undergoing final assembly at the time of writing, along with the Chang'e 6 spacecraft. The China National Space Administration has shared many updates since the spacecraft and launch vehicle arrived, but it is known that the two will be tested together in one of the assembly buildings ahead of rollout to the launchpad.

The rollout of the Long March 5 with Chang'e 6 is not expected to be until a few days ahead of the launch, likely at the very start of May. The launch is currently expected to occur on the 3rd of May from LC-101 of the Wenchang Space Launch Site, located in the province of Hainan in the south of China.