CNSA - China National Space Administration
1993-present
Who
China's civil space agency, founded 1993 and administered under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. One fact comes first: CNSA publishes no official consolidated budget. Western estimates exist; the agency itself has never printed a number - so this card says exactly that rather than laundering an estimate into a fact. What is documented is the record. Status: September 2026.
Why it matters
Firsts, stated flatly: Chang'e 4 made the first landing on the Moon's far side in January 2019 - nothing from any nation had touched that hemisphere before. Chang'e 6 returned the first samples ever collected there - 1,935 g, June 2024; before it, every gram of lunar material on Earth (the ~382 kg Apollo brought home, the Luna samples too) came from the near side. The Tiangong station has been continuously crewed since late 2022, usually 3, 6 at handover - since 2011 only one other station has been crewed at any given time. Zhurong reached Mars in May 2021 (the rover fell silent in 2022). And the succession question is answered on the calendar: with the ISS retirement planned before 2031, CNSA and Roscosmos plan an International Lunar Research Station with construction from about 2031. China is now the second busiest launch nation on Earth, year after year. Status: September 2026.
Lineage
Inherits the crewed and lunar programme run out of the old Fifth Academy lineage; operates the Long March rocket family. The ILRS partnership with Roscosmos is the plan - the collection links to the ISS era it follows.