Three Chinese taikonauts took off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Thursday, taking off after the Tiangong Space Station to replace three long-term crew members which conclude a six-month stay in space.
With veteran Ye GuangfuAt the age of 43, the Long March 2F rocket roared smoothly to life at 8:59 a.m. EDT (8:59 p.m. Beijing time). climbed away on a south-westerly trajectory that matched the station’s track.
The flight plan called for Ye and his crew members to monitor an automated rendezvous six and a half hours after takeoff and dock at Tiangong Station, where they would join Shenzhou-17’s commander. Tang Hongbo, Tang Shengjie and Jiang Xinlin aboard the orbital outpost.
“My two crew members and I, as well as the entire space mission team, are fully prepared and confident (in our ability) to complete this spaceflight mission,” Ye said in translated remarks at a press conference on Wednesday.
Tang and his crew plan to depart and return to Earth with a landing in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on April 30, concluding a six-month stay in orbit that began with the launch on October 25.
The Shenzhou 18 flight is China’s seventh pilot mission to the space station and the fifth since then A 24-hour occupation was started in June 2022. The launch was broadcast live on Chinese television and provided spectacular footage of the rocket’s ascent into space and interior views of the taikonauts as they monitored the cockpit screens.
Ye is the only space veteran of the crew and will complete a 182-day tour of duty as part of the Shenzhou 13 mission in 2021-2022. Li Cong and Li Guangsu are rookies making their first flight.
As a first-time pilot, Li Guangsu said he was looking forward to traveling 7.9 meters per second – about 28,500 km per hour – and “can’t wait” to experience weightlessness.
“There are no wings, but I can still fly!” he said at the traditional pre-flight press conference. “What a wonderful experience for me. I would also like to take this opportunity to see the blue planet, to take a good look at the beautiful landscape of our motherland.”
During their time in space, Ye and his company will conduct a full range of more than 90 scientific research projects, along with two to three spacewalks to install remote experiments, micrometeoroid shielding and other equipment.
Lin
The Chinese space station consists of three large modules connected in a T-shaped configuration. Launched in April 2021, the Tianhe core module is the centerpiece of the complex and provides crew quarters, life support systems, communications, spacecraft control, an airlock and multiple docking ports.
Two other major modules – Wentian and Mengtian – were attached to Tianhe in 2022. The station has a mass of approximately 100 tons.
The 450-ton International Space Station consists of more than a dozen pressurized modules supplied by the United States, Russia, the European Space Agency and Japan. Construction began in 1998 and the laboratory has been permanently staffed by rotating crews of astronauts and cosmonauts since 2000.
The Tiangong station has been permanently staffed since June 2022 with the arrival of the Shenzhou 14 crew. Although smaller than the ISS, the Chinese laboratory is newer and equipped with state-of-the-art equipment, computers and instrumentation.
NASA and its partners plan to decommission the ISS in 2030 and remotely launch it into a destructive atmospheric reentry over the South Pacific Ocean, away from shipping lanes and populated areas. This leaves Tiangong as the only government-operated space station in low Earth orbit.
NASA is counting on commercial space stations operated by private companies to provide in-orbit research capabilities in the 2030s, as the US agency aims a return to the moon later this decade with the agency Artemis program.
China plans to launch its own taikonauts to the moon starting in 2030, sparking what NASA administrator Bill Nelson calls a new space race between superpowers.
“The fact is: we are in a space race,” he told Politico in an interview published last year. ‘And it is true that we had better be careful that they do not reach a place on the moon under the guise of scientific research. And it’s not outside the realm of possibility that they’re saying, ‘Stay away, we’re here. , this is our territory. ”
News agency CGTN, quoting Lin, said the Long March-10 moon rocket, the Mengzhou (Dream Vessel) crew transport spacecraft and the Lanyue (Embracing the Moon) lunar lander have completed design reviews and prototypes are currently being tested.
NASA plans it will pilot the Artemis mission for the first time at the end of next yearlaunching three NASA astronauts and a Canadian aviator on a trip around the moon and back to test the agency’s Orion crew transport ship.
If all goes well, NASA plans to land astronauts near the moon’s south pole in 2026-2027. But that will depend on the extent to which SpaceX perfects its Starship lunar lander and Super Heavy booster.
China is in the process of selecting a fourth batch of taikonauts who Lin said will also participate in space station activities upcoming moon missions.
He reiterated comments he made before the launch of Shenzhou 17, saying that China, like the United States and its ISS partners, plans to launch kites from other countries, including space tourists.
“We will accelerate the research and promotion of the participation of foreign astronauts and space tourists in Chinese space station flights,” he said in translated remarks published by The Washington Post. “We certainly expect to see astronauts with different identities on the Chinese space station.”
American Catholics and their relationship to the Church
Pope Francis says ‘negotiated peace is better than endless war’
Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction has been overturned by the New York appeals court