China’s show of force in space

by time news
Taikonauts Fei Junlong, Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu during the farewell ceremony ahead of the Shenzhou 15 mission to the Tiangong space station on Tuesday at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China. China. STRINGER/VIA REUTERS

ANALYSIS – With the successful launch of Shenzhou 15, there are more Chinese than Americans or Russians orbiting the Earth.

Far from the earthly problems where the Chinese Communist Party and its general secretary, Xi Jinping, are contested by the population because of the restrictions imposed by the “zero Covid” strategy, in space, everything is fine. Very well even since the successful launch, Tuesday afternoon, of a Long March 2 rocket from the center of Jiuquan, located in the Gobi desert, in the northwest of China.

This Shenzhou 15 mission takes three taikonauts (Chinese astronauts) to the Tiangong space station (literally the “heavenly palace”), which revolves around the Earth, in an almost circular orbit at just under 400 kilometers above sea level. As a result, for the first time in space history, there are more Chinese than Americans in orbit. The ISS, the International Space Station initiated by NASA, but which brings together 20 countries in particular the Russian agency Roscosmos, currently welcomes seven people on board: three American astronauts, three cosmonauts…

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