A Chinese language astronaut crew decked their space station in purple to have a good time the brand new yr.
The Shenzhou 15 crew carried fortunate purple indicators and strung purple banners across the Tiangong space station to welcome the Chinese language New 12 months on Sunday (Jan. 22), which would be the 12 months of the Rabbit.
“As we welcome the upcoming spring competition in China’s space station, we want you all peace and pleasure [and] getting what you would like for,” commander Fei Junlong mentioned within the video launched by the China National Space Administration. (Translation from Chinese language supplied by state media supplier CCTV.)
Flanking Junlong had been Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu; the trio are serving six months aboard the space station, throughout which they plan to conduct three or 4 spacewalks and greater than 100 experiments.
Associated: China’s Shenzhou 15 crew has busy 6 months ahead aboard Tiangong space station
The astronauts, additionally known as taikonauts, arrived on the the newly completed space station on Nov. 29 following their launch atop a Long March 2F rocket. They met up with the Shenzhou 14 crew in orbit, making a historic second when China had six astronauts in orbit for the primary time.
Tiangong now hosts three space modules, which is anticipated to tremendously enhance the Shenzhou 15 crew’s duties in comparison with its predecessors. Chinese language state media has mentioned there are 24 science cupboards within the just lately arrived Wentian and Mengtian modules alone.
The duties for the spacewalks haven’t been disclosed. Huang Weifen, China’s chief astronaut coach, advised state media supplier CCTV (opens in new tab) in December that as a result of extravehicular work should be accomplished in parallel by two crew members exterior the spacecraft at two completely different places, spacewalks will pose “better challenges” than earlier than.
China operates its space program independently from the International Space Station consortium, largely as a result of NASA can not have interaction bilaterally with China as a consequence of legislation passed by Congress in 2011.
Earlier right this moment (Jan. 23) in a public, livestreamed deal with, European House Company director-general Josef Aschbacher mentioned his company has neither the “the budgetary nor the political … greenlight or intention” to fly European astronauts to Tiangong, following earlier musing about such alternatives, as a consequence of ISS commitments.
Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a guide about space drugs. Observe her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
