China to send youngest-ever crew to space station

China will ship its youngest-ever crew of astronauts to the Tiangong space station this week, officers mentioned Wednesday, as Beijing pursues plans for a manned mission to the moon by the tip of the last decade.

Tiangong is the crown jewel of Beijing’s space program, which has additionally landed robotic rovers on Mars and the moon and made China the third nation to place people in orbit.

The station is consistently crewed by groups of three astronauts, who’re rotated out each six months.

The Shenzhou-17 module carrying the trio to the station is scheduled to blast off at 11:14 am (0314 GMT) Thursday from the Jiuquan launch website in China’s arid northwest.

“It’s the crew of astronauts with the youngest common age because the launch of the space station development mission,” Beijing’s State Council Info Workplace mentioned in an announcement.

The all-male trio might be led by Tang Hongbo, who’s on his first return mission to the Tiangong space station.

“All through the previous two years, I’ve typically dreamt of going again to space,” Tang mentioned at a press convention on Wednesday.

“The space station is our different dwelling that takes us away from Earth and into the universe,” he added.

Accompanying him might be Tang Shengjie and Jiang Xinlin, each of their thirties and every making maiden space voyages.

The crew has a mean age of 38, in comparison with 42 for the crew of Shenzhou-16 when it launched.

“In accordance with the plan, the Shenzhou-17 spacecraft will conduct autonomous rendezvous and docking procedures after coming into orbit,” Lin Xiqiang, spokesperson for China’s space program, mentioned throughout a Wednesday morning press briefing.

It should dock with the station’s core module “about six-and-a-half hours” after first initiating the process, he added.

‘Area dream’

Plans for China’s “space dream” have been put into overdrive below President Xi Jinping.

The world’s second-largest economic system has pumped billions of {dollars} into its military-run space program in an effort to meet up with the USA and Russia.

In June, the return capsule of the Shenzhou-15 spaceship touched down at a landing site within the northern Inside Mongolia area, with state media hailing the mission as a “full success”.

That month additionally noticed the launch of the Shenzhou-16 capsule, which carried the primary Chinese language civilian—Beihang College professor Gui Haichao—into orbit.

That crew will return to Earth on October 31 after finishing a handover, officers mentioned Wednesday.

Beijing additionally goals to ship a crewed mission to the moon by 2030 and plans to construct a base on the lunar surface.

Spokesperson Lin reiterated that purpose Wednesday, saying that the “aim of touchdown Chinese language individuals on the moon by 2030 might be realized as scheduled”.

Lunar plans

The nation’s lunar plans have been dealt a setback in 2017 when the highly effective Lengthy March-5 Y2 rocket didn’t launch on a mission to place communication satellites into orbit.

That compelled the postponement of the Chang’e-5 launch, initially scheduled to gather moon samples within the second half of 2017.

One other robotic, the Chang’e-4, landed on the far facet of the moon in January 2019—a historic first.

Chang’e-5 finally landed on the moon in 2020, elevating a Chinese language flag on the lunar floor and returning to Earth the primary lunar samples in 4 many years.

And the ultimate module of the T-shaped Tiangong—which suggests “heavenly palace”—efficiently docked with the core construction final yr.

The station carries a number of items of cutting-edge scientific gear, in response to state information company Xinhua, together with “the world’s first space-based chilly atomic clock system”.

The Tiangong is predicted to stay in low Earth orbit at between 400 and 450 kilometers (250 and 280 miles) above the planet for a minimum of 10 years.

© 2023 AFP