​China has successfully sent a three-person crew to its new space station and says it wants to expand it in the coming years and open it up to astronauts from other countries. China wants to send people to the moon by 2030.
The Shenzhou-16 mission was launched on May 30 at 9:31 a.m. local time from the Jiuquan base on a Long March 2F rocket. One of the astronauts is the most experienced Chinese in space, having participated in four missions. For the first time, a civilian was also sent: a professor who would conduct scientific experiments. According to the Chinese, the launch was a “complete success”.
They will spend six months aboard the space station, and the crew they will replace will return to Earth in a few days.
China wants to regularly send two manned space missions every year to quickly gain experience with such launches. The Shenzhou-17 mission with another crew on board will be launched in October.
The T-shaped space station will be expanded in the future, the Chinese say, and there are plans to host foreign astronauts as part of cooperation programs. China was barred from working with the International Space Station more than a decade ago after the Americans said the military “wing” of the Communist Party would have access to too much “key” technology.
There will probably be cooperation with Russia or Arab countries (Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates), but nothing has been confirmed yet.
The Chinese began assembling the space station in the spring of 2021, and in July and October 2022 they sent two more modules of the Tiangong station, which should operate for at least 10 years.
The station has three modules: Tianhe (the one where the astronauts live), Mengtian (the laboratory) and Wentian (necessary for extravehicular activities). The station is roughly similar in size to the former Soviet Mir station, i.e. much smaller than SSI.
China sent the first man into space in 2003, more than four decades after the Soviet Union and the US, but the Asian country wants to recover quickly and wants the first Chinese to set foot on the moon by 2030.
Source AFP
Source: Hot News
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