CLEP And The Struggle For Positional Advantage

Mars base The Moon and Earth seen during the Artemis 2 mission. (credit: NASA) Strategic celestography and lunar competition: Artemis, CLEP, and the struggle for positional advantage by Glenn Scofield Monday, April 13, 2026 Human exploration of the Moon is often presented as a scientific endeavor, but the scale and scope of contemporary lunar exploration programs suggest that great power competition is expanding into the broader Earth–Moon system. As the United States and China expand their presence beyond geocentric orbit, lunar resource distribution and cislunar orbital dynamics are shaping a new phase of strategic competition. This rivalry increasingly revolves around two evolving lunar architectures: the US-led Artemis campaign and the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP) with its Chang’e series of missions. Both programs seek to expand access, presence, and operational reach throughout the Earth–Moon system, and both will grow more capable as commercial launch systems and autonomous spacecraft operations continue to mature. Like classical geopolitics and maritime strategy, strategic celestography assesses how celestial environments create positional advantages. The rapid commercialization of space during the “Third Space Age” (2016–present) has fundamentally altered the economics of operating beyond Earth orbit. Advancements in reusable heavy-lift launch systems, civil-commercial partnerships, orbital refueling, and autonomous navigation are reducing the barriers to sustained lunar and cislunar activity and expanding access to their strategically valuable regions. Strategic celestography provides a framework for understanding this shift. Like classical geopolitics and maritime strategy, strategic celestography assesses how celestial environments create positional advantages. Like the maritime domain, space contains finite and strategically meaningful physical features that shape state behavior. Yet strategic celestography differs from traditional strategic geography in that celestial environments continuously shift relative to the Earth. In these environments, strategic value depends not only on location, but also on when a state can access positions and how orbital motion affects their utility over time. The Moon is the first major test case for this framework. Its surface contains strategic locations with disproportionate value for sustained operations, while the broader cislunar environment includes orbital regimes that are increasingly important for communications, space domain awareness (SDA), and national security activities. As a result, the emerging competition between Artemis and CLEP is not simply about prestige or scientific exploration, but also about which power will establish advantageous positions within the Earth–Moon system and how those activities will shape geopolitics. Strategic value of the lunar surface In this emerging competition, the lunar south polar region has become the primary focal point of US and Chinese planning due to its concentration of resource-rich and operationally favorable terrain. Data from scientific missions, including the US Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, have confirmed the presence of accumulated water ice within permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) in this area. These deposits could support in situ resource utilization (ISRU), with future lunar infrastructure converting water into hydrogen and oxygen propellants, potentially making the Moon a forward logistical hub for reusable space operations. Combined with the lack of atmospheric drag and low gravity on the Moon, this could greatly reduce the burden of transporting terrestrial resources into space and facilitate expanded space operations. The lunar south pole also offers important solar illumination advantages over equatorial regions. Elevated ridges and crater rims can receive extended periods of solar exposure, reducing the severe power and thermal fluctuations associated with the Moon’s extended day-night cycle, during which surface temperatures can vary by several hundred degrees, thereby extending the service life of lunar equipment and infrastructure. These conditions also make the region more suitable for local construction and infrastructure development, as reliable solar power will allow future operators to sinter lunar regolith into structural material for launch pads and other surface and subsurface structures that support operations and help protect astronauts from the harsh environment. Taken together, water deposits, solar illumination advantages, and increased thermal stability reinforce the disproportionate advantage of certain strategically valuable lunar areas. As on Earth, key locations offer enhanced benefits in energy access, logistics, and persistent presence. It is therefore unsurprising that both US and Chinese lunar exploration architectures have placed high emphasis on the south polar region. Strategic value of cislunar space If the lunar surface represents one dimension of strategic value, the wider cislunar orbital environment adds another. Cislunar space extends from geostationary orbit (GEO) to the Moon and includes important orbital regimes and gravitational equilibrium points. Among its most important features are the five Earth-Moon Lagrange points, designated L1 through L5, where complex three-body gravitational interactions between the Earth, Moon, and spacecraft create relatively stable orbital trajectories. These positions provide several operational advantages in the Earth–Moon system. As on Earth, key locations on the Moon offer enhanced benefits in energy access, logistics, and persistent presence. China demonstrated early access to this orbital are under CLEP. In 2018, China launched Chang’e-4 and deployed Queqiao-1, the first dedicated relay satellite placed near the Earth–Moon L2 region to provide communications access to the mission lander and rover operating on the Moon’s far side. The Chang’e-4 mission also marked the first successful rover operation on the far side of the Moon. In 2024, China reinforced its cislunar presence with Queqiao-2. Together, these relay assets demonstrate how cislunar positioning supports persistent operations and communications in otherwise difficult-to-access or frequently masked parts of the Earth–Moon system. Queqiao-1’s Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO) is a highly elliptical three-body trajectory that remains relatively stable near the Earth–Moon L2. This halo orbit benefits from favorable gravitational conditions that reduce satellite stationkeeping requirements and conserve energy and onboard propellant. NRHOs also provide persistent line of sight to the lunar south pole region and far side of the Moon, supporting communications as demonstrated by Chang’e-4. In addition, they are well suited for spacecraft transfers between NRHO and the lunar surface. The placement of Chinese spacecraft in these orbits underscores a growing SDA challenge. Cislunar space remains comparatively lightly monitored, and its sheer scale magnifies the problem: it encompasses a volume more than 1,000 times greater than the space below GEO. Tracking spacecraft across this region is difficult due to the long distances, line-of-sight masking caused by the Moon, and the complexity of three-body orbital dynamics. As more spacecraft enter cislunar trajectories, the ability of the US to observe and interpret activity across the Earth-Moon system will become an increasingly important national security requirement. Competing architectures of Artemis and CLEP The strategic competition unfolding in the Earth–Moon system between the US and China is best understood as a competition to establish presence, access, and endurance across key lunar and cislunar environments. Artemis reflects a US-led architecture that combines crewed exploration, legacy infrastructure, and commercial support. Its significance lies not only in returning astronauts to the Moon, but in establishing a structure for sustained operations. Yet Artemis remains constrained by its legacy systems. The program relies heavily on the Space Launch System (SLS), which uses Space Shuttle RS-25 engines and other proven technologies, but at a far higher cost than emerging systems such as SpaceX’s Starship. The delay of the first Artemis lunar south pole landing from 2024 to 2028 has also widened a strategic window for China to strengthen its own lunar capabilities. Starship development and its Human Landing System (HLS) variant are therefore central to Artemis’s goal of a sustained lunar presence, with NRHO providing a staging point for HLS operations to the lunar surface. Artemis and CLEP are not merely space exploration programs driven by national pride. They are competing approaches to secure positional advantages in the Earth–Moon system. China’s CLEP takes a different approach. Rather than relying primarily on a crewed architecture, China has pursued a state-led model centered on robotic missions, relay systems, and the rapid buildup of independent space capabilities. Through CLEP, China has launched six increasingly complex lunar missions, Chang’e-1 through Chang’e-6, which have included orbiters, landers, and sample return missions. These missions have allowed Beijing to accumulate experience at comparatively lower cost than Artemis. China’s Queqiao-1 and Queqiao-2 relay satellites demonstrate how these systems can help sustain lunar operations in the south polar region and on the far side of the Moon. NASA’s 2026 test of the Orion Artemis 2 Optical Communications System (O2O) offers a useful parallel to China’s established relay architecture. Moreover, China’s longer-term plans include the 2026 launch of Chang'e-7 and its small rocket-powered hopping probe for exploring hard-to-access PSRs, the development of the Long March 10 heavy-lift crewed lunar launch vehicle, and a proposed International Lunar Research Station near the lunar south pole. These plans show that Beijing, like Washington, is pursuing a sustained strategic lunar presence rather than one-off scientific achievements. China’s developing commercial space sector will eventually complement its state-led exploration model. As Chinese commercial firms expand, the associated economies of scale will reinforce China’s cislunar ambitions by decreasing launch costs and increasing launch cadences. Notably, China surpassed the US in annual launch totals from 2018 to 2021, before SpaceX-driven growth reversed that trend and restored US launch dominance and strategic advantage in space. The emergence of a capable Chinese commercial launch enterprise will likely renew pressure on US space leadership. Artemis and CLEP are not merely space exploration programs driven by national pride. They are competing approaches to secure positional advantages in the Earth–Moon system. Artemis emphasizes crewed operations and relies heavily on commercial suppliers such as SpaceX to complete its future goals, while CLEP prioritizes a robotics-first model that is likely to grow more sophisticated as Chinese capabilities expand. Nevertheless, both programs are oriented toward securing scientific achievement and broader national power. Strategic implications of positional advantage States have primarily designed their contemporary national security space architectures for geocentric operations, with satellites supporting Earth-based national security priorities. As state and commercial activity increasingly expands farther outward, the limitations of those legacy architectures will become more apparent. The Third Space Age is likely to drive significant growth in great power assets operating in cislunar space, with major implications for SDA, communications, remote sensing, and counterspace operations. For example, spacecraft approaching Earth from cislunar trajectories can exploit unique approach vectors and velocities to create new surveillance and warning challenges across multiple domains. These conditions could allow China to conduct counterspace activities or achieve strategic surprise against US spacecraft operating in traditional Earth orbits. Such activities could include the use of cislunar space to place satellites in retro-geosynchronous orbits that complicate surveillance and increase the risk of time-sensitive threats within the GEO belt. As space competition intensifies, maintaining awareness across the Earth-Moon system will become as important as the ability to access and exploit it. Current US space architectures may prove insufficient to detect and respond to these emerging threats. These developments will require doctrinal adaptation, as existing space planning remains heavily oriented toward geocentric operations. As US Space Force doctrine recognizes, cislunar space is a distinct regime with distinct planning factors. As states expand into cislunar space and onto and beneath the lunar surface, they will need updated analytical frameworks that can assess why certain celestial positions matter, where they are located, and how they shape access and influence. Some analysts have even called for the development of Lunar Intelligence (LUNINT) to better monitor and assess activity across the Moon and cislunar space. These adaptations are needed because celestial environments will increasingly shape grand strategy, information requirements, and great power competition. In that respect, strategic celestography is not simply a descriptive concept; it offers a systematic way to think about competition in an expanded strategic environment with increasingly important economic and national security impacts. Allied contributions to lunar competition Coalition dynamics are likely to influence the balance of power in the Earth-Moon system. One of the clearest differences between Artemis and CLEP is that the former is embedded within a broader allied framework, while the latter is more tightly organized around Chinese state capacity. That distinction matters because coalition architectures can help distribute technical risk, widen industrial participation, and reduce the financial burden of space activities. Commercial actors, backed by private investment and state support, could eventually exploit celestial resources in ways that parallel earlier eras of commercial expansion and strategic competition on Earth. Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) mission offers one example of how allied contributions may matter in practice. In 2024, Japan demonstrated a highly precise autonomous lunar navigation and landing capability, achieving an accuracy beyond that of earlier Chinese Chang’e missions. Over time, space-hardened processors capable of neural network-enabled computations will further improve autonomous precision landing in complex celestial terrain, increasing access to strategically valuable locations and facilitating the deployment of autonomous construction systems and support infrastructure. Pursuing strengthened partnerships with like-minded technologically advanced nations such as Japan provide a pathway for the US to share operational and technological costs, as well as risks and rewards, in an extended competition for resources and positional advantage beyond Earth. The legal and commercial foundations of lunar competition Competition in the Earth-Moon system is also being shaped by emerging legal and commercial frameworks. Although the Outer Space Treaty precludes signatory states from asserting national sovereignty over the Moon, the US passed the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015, allowing US citizens to recover and use space resources. Japan, an important partner in Artemis, established its own similar framework in 2021. Together, these legal developments help facilitate commercial activity and long-term competition over strategically valuable positions beyond Earth. Historical parallels Historical precedent shows that scientific and commercial expeditions have often led the way to the development of new strategic nodes. During early European maritime expansion, islands such as the Azores and Canary Islands served as forward staging areas for operations across maritime spaces. Access to and control over these locations carried significant strategic value, allowing states to accumulate wealth and expand their national power. Yet space differs from maritime geography due to its dynamic nature. Its “islands” are constantly moving, and spacecraft cannot simply anchor in orbit around a planet. Nevertheless, the logic remains sound, as orbital mechanics constrain movement through space much like the wind patterns and currents that shaped maritime trade during the Age of Sail. Similarly, just as European states established forward ports for resupply, lunar infrastructure development, propellant production, and in-orbit refueling operations would reduce Earth-based logistical burdens. As economies of scale increase and exploration expands, reusable spacecraft could resupply in cislunar space before departing for Mars, near Earth asteroids, and other interplanetary destinations. Commercial actors, backed by private investment and state support, could eventually exploit celestial resources in ways that parallel earlier eras of commercial expansion and strategic competition on Earth. Conclusion The renewed focus on lunar exploration reflects more than a return to human activity beyond low Earth orbit. As the US and China expand their presence throughout the Earth-Moon system, they are creating positional advantages that will shape strategic outcomes on Earth. As activity expands, the ability to access, sustain, and operate within key orbital regimes and resource-rich lunar regions will become increasingly important. Strategic celestography helps explain how access, infrastructure, and competition evolve as commercial, civil, military, and intelligence activity extends beyond geocentric orbit by treating celestial environments as strategic features and linking positional advantages to national power. In this sense, the emerging competition between Artemis and CLEP is not simply a contest over scientific exploration. It is about which state secures the most advantageous positions in a new era of great power competition in space, and how those positions will shape the future balance of power. Glenn Scofield is a retired US Air Force intelligence analyst whose work focuses on strategic competition and deterrence, with an emphasis on Northeast Asia and the geopolitical consequences of expanding activity in space. He holds an MA in National Security Studies and a BA in Political Science.