http://en.people.cn/n3/2025/0109/c90000-20263853.html

Chinese scientists are exploring the feasibility of an idea proposed by elementary school students: creating a flag that can wave on the moon.

On the moon, the absence of an atmosphere creates a vacuum, making it difficult for a flag to wave like it does on Earth. The students proposed to design a closed-loop wire on the flag’s surface, enabling bidirectional currents. The interaction of the electromagnetic fields would allow the flag to wave. If successful, this would be the first flag to flutter on the lunar surface.

At the Deep Space Exploration Laboratory (DSEL), researchers from Beijing and Anhui province are now collaborating to realise this concept as a payload for the forthcoming Chang’e-7 mission to the lunar south pole, scheduled to launch around 2026, aims to search for evidence of water or ice at the moon’s south pole.

The Chang’e-8 probe will be launched around 2028 to carry out experiments on lunar resource utilization. By 2035, Chang’e-7 and Chang’e-8 are expected to constitute the basic model of the International Lunar Research Station ILRS.