China and Russia established the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) coalition in 2021; by July 2026, it comprised 13 countries: China, Russia, Venezuela, South Africa, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Belarus, Egypt, Thailand, Nicaragua, Serbia, Kazakhstan, and Senegal.[1][5][6] The planned station is intended for the lunar south pole, with a basic station targeted before 2035.[5][6]
The coalition represents more than diplomatic participation: it is a China-dominated framework for sustained robotic and eventual crewed lunar operations.[1][3] Its south-polar focus places it near permanently illuminated terrain, volatile deposits, and strategically important communications and landing zones. Three members—Thailand, Senegal, and Serbia—also participate in the Artemis Accords, showing that future lunar governance will involve overlapping blocs rather than a simple two-camp division.[2][6]
The Ark team should track ILRS mission schedules, landing-site claims, reactor and power-system plans, communications standards, resource-use policies, and the identities of participating research institutions. It should model operational scenarios in which a 2035-era ILRS presence creates congestion, restricted access, dual-use surveillance, or competing norms around lunar resources, and should design Ark systems for political and technical interoperability without dependence on any single coalition.[4][6][7]