China has launched a new three-person mission to complete the work of assembling its space station into permanent orbit.
Key points:
- Shenzhou 14 crew includes two experienced taikonauts and one making its first flight into orbit
- The new modules “will provide more stability, more powerful features,” said taikonaut Chen Dong
- Its spacecraft took off from the Jiuquan satellite launch center on the edge of the Gobi Desert.
The Shenzhou 14 crew will spend six months at Tiangong Station, during which they will oversee the addition of two laboratory modules to join Tianhe’s main living space, which was launched in April 2021. .
Its spacecraft left the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the edge of the Gobi Desert at 10:44 a.m. local time on the Long March 2F rocket of the manned spaceflight program.
Fifteen minutes later, it reached low Earth orbit and opened its solar panels, to the applause of Jiuquan and Beijing ground controllers.
The launch was broadcast live on state television, indicating a growing level of confidence in the capabilities of the space program, which has been promoted as a sign of China’s technological progress and global influence.
Commander Chen Dong and fellow Taikonauts Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe will assemble the three-module structure linking the existing Tianhe with Wentian and Mengtian, which will arrive in July and October.
The crew of Shenzhou 14 will spend six months at Tiangong Station. (AP: Li Gang / Xinhua)
Another cargo ship, the Tianzhou-3, remains docked at the station.
The arrival of the new modules “will provide more stability, more powerful features, more complete equipment,” Commander Chen, 43, who was a member of Shenzhou 11 mission in 2016, said at a news conference on Saturday.
Colonel Liu, 43, is also a space veteran and was the first female taikonaut in China to arrive in space aboard the Shenzhou 9 mission in 2012. Colonel Cai, 46, is doing his first space trip.
China’s space program launched its first taikonaut into orbit in 2003, becoming the only third country to do so on its own after the former Soviet Union and the United States.
It has landed mobile robots on the moon and placed one on Mars last year.
China has also returned lunar samples and officials have discussed a possible manned mission to the moon.
China’s space program is led by the ruling military wing of the Communist Party, the People’s Liberation Army, which led the United States to exclude it from the International Space Station.
The three taikonauts will be joined at the end of their mission for three or five days by the crew of the nearby Shenzhou 15, marking the first time the station will have six people on board.
AP
Posted 10 hours ago 10 hours ago dig. June 5, 2022 at 5:12 am, updated 7 hours 7 hours ago dig. June 5, 2022 at 8:22 AM