Crewed space flight launches as part of Moon ambitions
The craft docked successfully with the Tiangong space station after a flight of about 3.5 hours.
Courtesy of Reuters
BEIJING, China (AFP) — China launched its crewed Shenzhou-23 spacecraft and eased it into a successful docking with a space station early Monday as part of Beijing’s ambitions to send humans to the Moon by 2030, state media said.
During this mission, a Chinese astronaut is scheduled to spend a full year in orbit on the Tiangong space station, a crucial first in the Chinese lunar landing program.
The Long March 2-F rocket blasted off in a cloud of flames and smoke on time at 11:08 p.m. Sunday night from the Jiuquan launch center in China’s northwestern Gobi Desert, video from state broadcaster CCTV showed.
The spacecraft separated from the rocket around 10 minutes later and entered orbit, the Chinese Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said on social media.
“The astronauts are in good condition, and the launch has been a complete success,” it added.
The craft docked successfully with the Tiangong space station after a flight of about 3.5 hours, the state news agency Xinhua reported, quoting CMSA.
The mission marks the first spaceflight by an astronaut from Hong Kong: 43-year-old Li Jiaying (Lai Ka-ying in Cantonese), who previously worked for the Hong Kong police.
The two other crew members are 39-year-old space engineer Zhu Yangzhu and 39-year-old Zhang Zhiyuan, a former air force pilot, who is traveling into space for the first time.
Cheering crowds waved Chinese flags at a farewell ceremony ahead of the launch, while a band played and the three astronauts saluted on stage.
The crew is set to carry out numerous scientific projects in life sciences, materials science, fluid physics and medicine.
A key experiment of Shenzhou-23 will be the full-year stay in orbit by one of the crew in order to study the effects of a long stay in microgravity.
The experiment is part of China’s preparations for future lunar missions, as well as missions to Mars.
The astronaut selected for this one-year mission will be named at a later date, depending on the progress of the Shenzhou-23 mission, a spokesperson for the CMSA said on Saturday.
The main challenges will involve long-term effects on humans, including bone density loss, muscle wasting, radiation exposure, sleep disturbances, behavioural and psychological fatigue, said Richard de Grijs, an astrophysicist and professor at Macquarie University in Australia.