China sends three astronauts to its space station on Tuesday

2023-05-29 12:10:08

China finalizes the details for put into orbit three astronauts at 09:31 this Tuesday (01:31 GMT) on board the ship Shenzhou-16which will transport them to the space station Tiangongwhere they will be about five months.

The deputy director of China’s Manned Mission Space Agency, Lin Xiqiang, revealed the identity of the three astronauts at a press conference on Monday: Jing Haipeng, Zhu Yangzhu and Gui Haichaowhich will take off towards Tiangong from the Jiuquan Launch Base, located in a desert area in the north of the country.

Jing will be the commander of the manned mission, which will represent the fourth in which he has participated, which will make him the ‘taikonaut’, as Chinese astronauts are called, with more missions behind him. It will be the first time in space for Zhu and Gui.

The three new ‘taikonauts’ will spend five months in the Tiangong space station, where they will spend a few days with those who have been its tenants in the last six months

Commander Jing and Zhu will be in charge of maneuvering and managing the ship and conducting scientific experimentswhile Gui will be responsible for the experimental payloads, Lin reported.

Upon arrival at the station, the three ‘magic cow‘ They will spend a few days at the station with those who have been their tenants for the last six months, who arrived on Shenzhou-15, to carry out the crew relief, a protocol that will be the usual trend in future missions.

China’s new step in the space race

Crew members from Shenzhou-16 will be the first to arrive at Tiangong since Tiangong completed its construction at the end of 2022, marking the beginning of the application and development phase of the station, whose construction began in April 2021.

Tiangong is likely to become from 2024 the unique space station of the world if the International Space Station (ISS), an initiative spearheaded by the United States and to which China is barred from access due to military ties to its space program, is withdrawn that year as scheduled.

China has invested heavily in its space program and has managed to land the probe Chang’e 4 on the far side of the Moon —the first time it has been achieved— and to reach Mars for the first time, becoming the third country —after the United States and the extinct Soviet Union— to “land off”.

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