China is making serious progress in its goal to land astronauts on the moon by 2030

China is going full throttle in its quest to land astronauts on the moon by 2030.

That was clearly evident in an Aug. 15 ground test of the first-stage propulsion system of the Long March 10 (CZ-10), the new rocket that China is building to send people toward the moon.

A variant launcher is the Long March-10A, which will launch China's Mengzhou piloted spacecraft and uncrewed Tianzhou freighter to further utilize and evolve the country's Tiangong space station in Earth orbit.

Record thrust

The August test firing involved a shortened mockup of the CZ-10's first stage, outfitted with a cluster of seven YF-100K engines running on liquid oxygen and kerosene fuel. Four of the YF-100K engines are fixed in place, while the other three can swivel to control the rocket's flight.

The engines ro