Three Chinese taikonauts took off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China on Thursday and Tiangong space station to change three long-term crew members those nearing the end of their six-month stay in space.
with senior Ye GuangfuAt the controls of the 43-year-old Shenzhou 18 spacecraft, flanked by rookies Li Cong, 34, and Li Guangsu, 36, the Long March 2F rocket returned to life smoothly at 8:59 a.m. EDT (8:59 p.m. Beijing time). It climbed away into a southwest orbit consistent with the station’s orbit.
Ye and his crewmates then followed a 6.5-hour automatic rendezvous with the Tiangong station and joined Shenzhou-17 commander Tang Hongbo, Tang Shengjie, and Jiang Xinlin at the orbital outpost, docking at 3:32 p.m. (EDT).
“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 crewmates plan to return to Earth with a landing in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on April 30, completing a six-month orbital stay that began with the launch on October 25.
Shenzhou 18 flight was China’s seventh piloted flight journey to space station and the fifth since then 24-hour staff recruitment has started In June 2022. The launch was carried out live on Chinese television, providing spectacular footage of the rocket climbing into space and interior views of the taikonauts watching cockpit footage.
Ye is the only space veteran on the crew who completed a 182-day tour of duty in 2021-22 as part of the Shenzhou 13 mission. Li Cong and Li Guangsu are rookies making their first flights.
As a first-time flyer, Li Guangsu said he was looking forward to reaching speeds of 7.9 meters per second (about 17,500 mph) and “can’t wait” to experience weightlessness.
“I don’t have 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 the opportunity to see this blue planet, to look at the magnificent view of our homeland.”
During their stay in space, Ye and company will conduct two to three spacewalks to install external experiments, micrometeoroid shields and other equipment, as well as all of more than 90 scientific research projects.
Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of the China Manned Space Agency, said the crew will also participate in ongoing scientific training activities and unload the Tianzhou-8 cargo ship before Shenzhou 19’s replacement arrives in October.
The Chinese space station consists of: three big modules It is connected in a T-shaped configuration. The Tianhe core module, launched in April 2021, is the centerpiece of the complex, providing crew quarters, life support systems, communications, spacecraft controls, airlock, and multiple docking ports.
The other two major modules (Wentian and Mengtian) were added to Tianhe in 2022. The mass of the station is approximately 100 tons.
The 450-ton International Space Station consists of more than a dozen pressurized modules provided by the United States, Russia, the European Space Agency and Japan. Construction began in 1998, and the laboratory has been permanently staffed by rotating astronaut-cosmonaut teams since 2000.
Tiangong station has been permanently staffed since June 14, with the arrival of the Shenzhou 2022 crew. Although smaller than the ISS, the Chinese laboratory is newer and equipped with state-of-the-art equipment, computers and devices.
NASA and its partners plan to retire the ISS in 2030, which would remotely plunge it into a catastrophic reentry into the atmosphere over the South Pacific Ocean, far from shipping lanes and populated areas. This will leave Tiangong as the only government-operated space station in low Earth orbit.
NASA is relying on commercial space stations operated by private companies to provide research opportunities in Earth orbit in the 2030s. return to the moon By the end of this decade, the agency Artemis program.
China plans to send its own taikonauts to the moon starting in 2030, fueling what NASA Administrator Bill Nelson calls a new superpower space race.
“It’s a fact: We’re in a space race,” he told Politico in an interview published last year. “And it’s true that we have to be careful that they don’t go somewhere on the Moon under the guise of scientific research. It’s also possible that they say, ‘Look out, we’re here,’ this is our territory.”
CGTN news agency quoted Lin as saying that the Long March-10 moon rocket, Mengzhou (Dream Vessel) crew transport spacecraft and Lanyue (Moon Embracing) lunar lander have completed design reviews and prototypes are currently being tested.
NASA is planning this first piloted Artemis mission later next yearIt takes three NASA astronauts and a Canadian plane on a looping journey 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 south pole of the moon in the 2026-27 time period. But that will depend on SpaceX perfecting its Starship lunar lander and Super Heavy booster.
China is in the process of selecting a fourth group of taikonauts who Lin said will participate in space station activities. upcoming lunar missions.
Echoing comments he made before the launch of Shenzhou 17, he said China, like the United States and its ISS partners, plans to launch flights from other countries, including space tourists.
“We will step up research and promotion of the participation of foreign astronauts and space tourists in flights with China’s space station,” he said in a translation published by The Washington Post. “We definitely expect to see astronauts of different identities aboard China’s space station.”
US Catholics and their relationship with the church
“A negotiated peace is better than an endless war,” Pope Francis said
Nvidia I 60 Minutes on Sunday