Chang'e-7 is the mission that turns lunar water ice from an inference into a measurement. Orbital neutron and radar data have long suggested hydrogen-rich deposits in the permanently shadowed craters of the lunar south pole, where the floors have not seen sunlight for possibly billions of years and temperatures stay low enough for volatiles to survive. Chang'e-7's hopping probe is designed to jump into such a shadowed region and analyse water molecules and hydrogen isotopes in situ. Water ice matters because it can, in principle, be converted into drinking water, breathable oxygen and rocket propellant, which is what would make a long-stay lunar base cheaper than shipping every kilogram from Earth. That is why both China's planned International Lunar Research Station and the American Artemis programme are aimed at the same narrow band of polar terrain.

The Chang'e programme is run by the China National Space Administration, which was established in 1993 and is headquartered in Beijing, and the name comes from the Moon goddess of Chinese mythology. Separately, China's human spaceflight authorities have stated a goal of landing astronauts on the Moon before 2030, using the Long March 10 rocket, the Mengzhou crew spacecraft and the Lanyue lunar lander. The longer-term plan is the International Lunar Research Station near the south pole, envisaged for the 2030s. India reached the same region first in a different sense: Chandrayaan-3 soft-landed near the lunar south pole on 23 August 2023, making India the first country to land there and the fourth to soft-land on the Moon at all.