The Shenzhou-12 crew is to live on the Tianhe, "Harmony of the Heavens", a cylinder 16.6 metres (55 feet) long and 4.2 metres (14 feet) in diameter. It also plans to put astronauts on the moon - the farthest celestial body that humans have travelled to. law banning NASA from any connection with China means its astronauts have not been to the more than two-decade-old International Space Station, visited by more than 240 men and women of various nationalities.Ĭhina, which aims to become a major spacefaring power by 2030, in May became the second country to put a rover on Mars, two years after landing the first spacecraft on the far side of the moon. "The launch is a gift to the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party."Ĭhinese astronauts have had a relatively low international profile. "The motherland is powerful," one person wrote on Chinese social media, which has lit up with well-wishes for the Shenzhou-12 crew. The craft will also carry into space the hopes of some in Earth's most populous nation. Among them, four will be missions with people on board, potentially propelling up to 12 Chinese astronauts into space - more than the 11 men and women that China has sent since 2003. Shenzhou-12, meaning "Divine Vessel", will be the third of 11 missions needed to complete China's space station by 2022. A three-man crew of astronauts is expected to board the spacecraft to TīEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese spacecraft will blast off from the Gobi Desert on a Long March rocket in the coming days, ferrying three men to an orbiting space module for a three-month stay, the first time China has sent humans into space for nearly five years. FILE PHOTO: The Long March-2F Y12 rocket carrying the Shenzhou-12 spacecraft is transferred to the launch pad at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu province, China June 9, 2021. And that’s going to be very interesting to watch.”Īhead of the launch, the Chinese astronauts met Wednesday with reporters from inside a glass chamber to ensure they remained germ-free.© Reuters. “Now they’re at the point where they’re starting to think, ‘OK, we’re not just copying the West anymore, we’re going to start doing our own thing’. and the USSR did in the Cold War, China is just ticking them off,” said Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, also signed an agreement in March with the Chinese National Space Administration to build a base on or around the Moon, which they will call the International Scientific Lunar Station. A staff member wears the logo of China's new space station at a news conference about the first crewed mission to China's Tianhe space station. As broader U.S.-Russia relations deteriorate, Moscow has hinted that it may withdraw from ISS cooperation in 2025, meaning China could be the only country with a functioning space station. American concerns over the Chinese space program’s secrecy and connections to its military were largely responsible for that.īut the aging ISS that hosted astronauts from the U.S., Russia and a number of other countries is set to be decommissioned after 2024. “Exploring the vast universe, developing space activities and building a powerful space nation is our unremitting space dream,” he said.Ĭhina has long been frozen out of the International Space Station, or ISS, a project launched 20 years ago that has served as the ultimate expression of post-Cold War reconciliation between Russia and the United States. “I believe that in the near future, when the Chinese space station is complete, we will see Chinese and foreign astronauts taking on joint missions,” China Manned Space Agency Assistant Director Ji Qiming said at a news conference Wednesday ahead of the launch. ofDNV8XXU5- Janis Mackey Frayer June 17, 2021 but ‘thrilled’ that for 10 key minutes ‘it did its duty’. The rocket’s chief designer told me after so much work, she was sad to see it go. It’s pretty incredible what humans can do. The launch of #China’s first manned mission to its #space station.
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