China has launched three astronauts into orbit to begin occupation of the country’s new space station. Astronauts Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo are to spend three months aboard the Tianhe module some 380km above the Earth.
It will be China’s longest crewed space mission to date and the first in nearly five years. The crew successfully docked with the space station just over seven hours after the launch.
Their Shenzhou-12 capsule took off atop its Long March 2F rocket on Thursday. Lift-off from the Jiuquan satellite launch centre in the Gobi desert was at 09:22 Beijing time (01:22 GMT).
The launch and subsequent mission are another demonstration of China’s growing confidence and capability in the space domain. China has returned rock and soil samples to Earth from the surface of the Moon and landed a six-wheeled robot on Mars, in just the past six months.
What will the crew do in space?
The primary objective for Commander Nie Haisheng and his team on the Shenzhou-12 mission is to bring the 22.5-tonne Tianhe module into service.
Mr Nie said, “I have a lot of expectations.” ahead of the launch. We need to set up our new home in space and test a series of new technologies. So, the mission is tough and challenging. I believe with the three of us working closely together, doing thorough and accurate operations, we can overcome our challenges. We have the confidence to complete the mission.”
What are China’s space ambitions?
China has recently poured significant funding into its space efforts, and in 2019 became the first country to send an un-crewed rover to the far side of the Moon.
But it’s had to go at it alone in developing a space station, in part because it has been excluded from the International Space Station project.
The US, which leads that partnership with Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan, will not co-operate with the Asian nation in orbit.
For its part, China says it is open to foreign involvement on its station. In the first instance, this means hosted scientific experiments. For example, the Shenzhou-12 crew will conduct cancer investigations that are led from Norway. And on the outside of the station, there is an Indian-developed telescopic spectrograph to study ultraviolet emissions coming from deep space, from the likes of exploded stars.
But, long term, there probably also will be visits to the station by non-Chinese nationals.
Russia, which has shared technology in the past with China, has mentioned the possibility of sending its cosmonauts.
At Wednesday’s press conference to introduce the Shenzhou-12 crew, Ji Qiming, an assistant director with China’s human spaceflight agency, said: “We welcome co-operation in this regard in general.
“It is believed that, in the near future, after the completion of the Chinese space station, we will see Chinese and foreign astronauts fly and work together,” he added.
President Xi Jinping has also thrown his support behind the country’s space endeavours and the Chinese state media regularly cast the “space dream” as one step in the path to “national rejuvenation”.
Source: bbc.com