It’s one of the most famous moon landing conspiracy theories: how could a flag planted on the moon flutter, when there’s no wind on the moon? This has long been debunked by experts and simple experiments showing that the moon landing flag “ripples” were caused by astronauts twisting the pole into the Moon’s soil, leaving creases in the fabric.

But if you want to plant a flag on the moon and leave it there, it won’t flutter in the long run. China wants to address that through the interaction of electromagnetic fields.

The Chang’e-7 mission, scheduled for 2026, is China’s ambitious next step in lunar exploration. The mission is targeting the Moon’s south pole — a region of significant scientific and strategic interest. The Moon’s south pole, where water ice is suspected to exist in permanently shadowed craters, offers a unique opportunity to establish a self-sustaining base, serving as a launchpad for deeper space missions and advancing our understanding of extraterrestrial resource utilization.

This robotic mission will deploy an orbiter, a lander, a rover, and an innovative mini-hopping probe to investigate the lunar environment. focusing on the Shackleton Crater’s illuminated rim and its shadowed regions.

This mission is part of China’s broader Lunar Exploration Program, which began with orbiters (Chang’e-1, Chang’e-2), expanded to surface exploration (Chang’e-3, Chang’e-4), and advanced to lunar sample returns (Chang’e-5, Chang’e-6). It marks a critical step toward building a robotic research station and facilitating crewed lunar missions by the 2030s.

In this mission, China also wants to include a fluttering flag.

A Fluttering Flag

We know that the moon is vacuum with no air, so it is difficult to make a flag flutter by wind like on Earth,” said Zhang Tianzhu, deputy head of the institute of future technology at the Deep Space Exploration Laboratory.

The technical solution is to arrange wires on the surface of the flag and hook them with two-way positive and negative current. This will make the flag flutter through the interaction of electromagnetic fields. If it works, it will be the first flag to actually flutter long-term on the lunar surface.

The more important goal of the mission, however, is to find traces of water ice around the moon’s south pole. If it works, it will pave the way for long-term exploration on the moon, and potentially even a base.

“Our goal is to establish a sustainable and scalable comprehensive scientific experimental facility on the lunar surface and in lunar orbit, capable of long-term autonomous operation and short-term human participation, and to basically build an International Lunar Research Station by around 2035,” said Zhang.

Self-sufficiency on the Moon

Water on the Moon is crucial for a research base because it provides essential resources for sustaining human life and enabling further exploration. Water can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen, producing breathable air and rocket fuel, which reduces the need for costly resupply missions from Earth. Additionally, water is vital for drinking, food cultivation, and hygiene, making long-term habitation possible.

It’s not just water that they want to find, though. The mission features 21 payloads, including six international contributions. The advanced imaging, spectrometry, and weather-monitoring tools aboard Chang’e-7 aim to deepen our understanding of lunar resources and their potential to support future human exploration.

All of this, of course, sits under the aura of the fluttering Chinese electromagnetic flag.

The probe will be launched by a Long March 5 rocket in 2026, from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan Island, in China. NASA is also working on a program to establish a long-term human presence on the moon with its Artemis program.