Previously circumspect, Chinese space officials are out front now about their interest in sending their astronauts to the Moon on their own, even as they worked the halls of the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) here to establish closer outside links for human-spaceflight cooperation.

Dong Nengli of China’s Manned Space Engineering Program says his organization—which developed the Shenzhou human spacecraft and is planning an unpiloted orbital rendezvous and docking experiment in 2011—is already looking beyond the planned deployment of a 60-ton Chinese station in 2020.

“During the course of the third step of the China manned-spaceflight program, we will conduct a manned lunar mission conception study, validate the key technologies and finally pave the way for manned lunar exploration,” Dong told a press conference on his country’s space program on Oct. 15.

Chinese officials stress that there has been no government approval for a manned lunar landing, and they say China would “welcome” a chance to join the larger international exploration effort that has coalesced around the International Space Station.

“If the Americans and the International Space Station [partners] put forward this kind of cooperation suggestion, we would definitely really welcome these suggestions,” says Wang Jongqui, deputy chief designer of the Manned Space Engineering Program. “We would seriously take that into consideration.”

To that end, Wang and his delegation—which included Chinese spacewalker Zhai Zhigang—met with representatives of the French and German national delegations to the congress here. Their presence at the IAC marks a change in the public face of China’s space program, which in the past has sent representatives of the civilian China National Space Agency (CNSA) to the annual event.

This year, CNSA Administrator Sun Laiyan, a regular at past IAC heads-of-agency plenary sessions, withdrew from the congress after the programs had been printed. Officials of two different Western space agencies say there have been indications the CNSA is on the outs in Beijing, while the head of the Manned Space Engineering Office—Wang Wenbao—told Aviation Week and a delegation from the Space Foundation on Sept. 22 that his organization is handling human spaceflight for the central government (AW&ST Sept. 28, p. 24).

The management-level Manned Space Engineering Office and the Manned Space Engineering Program, which handles the technical side of the human-spaceflight effort, draw their funding from the Chinese military. All of the nation’s astronauts are military pilots; but like their counterparts from the U.S. and Russia, they do not wear their uniforms at international gatherings such as the IAC, and program officials downplay the military link when questioned about it.

Dong and other officials here offered no details about the human lunar concept study, which has been mentioned in Chinese-language technical publications but not announced at an international forum before. Instead, they elaborated on plans to continue gaining spaceflight experience by building toward the 60-ton, three-person space station and to follow up the second Chang’e lunar orbiter—which is set for launch next year—with a robotic lander, rover and eventually a sample-return mission.

The first miniature space station, Tiangong 1, is under construction and still scheduled to go into orbit in 2011 to serve as a docking target for the Shenzhou 8 spacecraft, which will be unmanned. If that goes well, China will move into a series of manned rendezvous and docking tests with Tiangong 1. Wang says there will be two or three Tiangongs, which officials previously said will weigh 8.5 tons. A Tiangong will be set up as a space laboratory in 2013. Astronauts will use it to practice medium-term stays in orbit and to perform scientific experiments. “By operating the space laboratory, China will accumulate experience in building, managing and operating the future space station,” says Dong.