On Thursday, three ancient Chinese aviators launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China and departed after liftoff. Amamiya Space Station Exchange 3 long-term crew members They are nearing the end of their six-month stay in space.
With veteran Ye Guangfu (43 years old) serving as the pilot of the Shenzhou 18 spacecraft, flanked by newcomers Li Cong (34 years old) and Li Guangsu (36 years old), the Long March 2 rocket was launched at 8 a.m. EDT. At 1:59 p.m. (8:59 p.m. in Beijing), there was a loud bang. time), it rose smoothly and left in a southwesterly orbit matching the station’s orbit.
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Ye and his crew then oversaw an automated six-and-a-half hour rendezvous with Tiangong Air Base, docking at 3:32 p.m. EDT, with Shenzhou 17’s commanders Tang Hongbo, Tang Shengjie, I joined Mr. Jiang Xinlin at the orbital outpost.
“My two crew members and I, as well as the entire space mission team, are fully prepared and confident to complete this spaceflight mission,” Ye said at a press conference on Wednesday. I mentioned it in a comment.
Tan and his crew are scheduled to leave Earth and return home after landing in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on April 30th, completing a six-month stay in orbit that began on October 25th.
Shenzhou 18 is China’s seventh operated flight mission to space station And the 5th time since then 24-hour staffing has begun The launch was broadcast live on Chinese television, showing spectacular footage of the rocket ascending into space and the inside view of an ancient astronaut monitoring the cockpit display.
Ye is the only space veteran on the crew, completing a 182-day mission in 2021-2022 as part of the Shenzhou 13 mission. Li Cong and Li Guangsu are rookies on their first flight.
Li Guangsu, who was on a plane for the first time, said he was looking forward to traveling at 7.9 meters per second (about 17,500 miles per hour) and “can’t wait” to experience weightlessness.
Chinese manned space agency
“It doesn’t have wings, but it can fly!” he said at a traditional pre-flight press conference. “It was a great experience for me. I would also like to take this opportunity to see the blue planet and take a closer look at the wonderful scenery of my homeland.”
During their stay in space, the group plans to carry out more than 90 scientific research projects in earnest, in addition to two to three spacewalks to conduct external experiments, shield micrometeorites, and install other equipment.
Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of China’s Manned Space Administration, said the crew will also take part in ongoing science and education activities and plan to unload the Tianzhou 8 cargo ship before its replacement, Shenzhou 19, arrives in October. He said it was planned.
The Chinese space station consists of: 3 large modules Connected in a T-shape. The Tianhe core module, launched in April 2021, is the centerpiece of the complex and provides crew quarters, life support systems, communications, spacecraft controls, an airlock, and multiple docking ports.
Two other large modules (Wentian and Mengtian) were installed on Tianhe in 2022. The mass of the station is approximately 100 tons.
Weighing 450 tons, the 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 his 1998 year, and since 2000, the institute has been staffed by a rotating crew of astronauts and cosmonauts.
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Tengu Station has been staffed full-time since June 2022, when the Shenzhou 14 crew arrived. Although the Chinese lab is smaller than the ISS, it is newer and has state-of-the-art equipment, computers, and instrumentation.
NASA and its partners plan to retire the ISS in 2030 and make a catastrophic re-entry into the atmosphere by remote control over the South Pacific Ocean, far from shipping lanes and population centers. This will make Tiangong the only government-operated space station in low Earth orbit.
NASA is counting on a commercial space station run by private companies to provide the U.S. agency with research opportunities in Earth orbit in the 2030s. return to the moon In the latter half of this decade, with an agency artemis program.
China plans to launch its own ancient spacecraft to the moon starting in 2030, sparking what NASA Administrator Bill Nelson calls a new superpower space race.
“That’s true. We’re in a space race,” he told Politico in an interview published last year. “And it’s true that they better be careful that they don’t reach some places on the moon under the guise of scientific research. And of the possibility that they say, ‘Stay away, we’re here.’ We won’t cross our territory.” This is our territory. ”
CGTN news agency quoted Lin as saying that the Long March 10 lunar rocket, Mengzhou (Dream Ship) crew transport spacecraft, and Lanyue (Moon Embracing) lunar lander have completed design reviews and prototypes are currently being tested. He said that it has been done.
What NASA is planning is First Artemis mission to be piloted late next yearlaunched three NASA astronauts and a Canadian airship on a circumnavigation around the moon and back to test NASA’s crew transport ship Orion.
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If all goes well, NASA plans to land astronauts near the moon’s south pole between 2026 and 2027. But that depends on whether SpaceX completes its Starship lunar module and superheavy booster.
China is in the process of selecting the fourth batch of Taiko astronauts, and Lin said they plan to participate in space station activities. Upcoming lunar missions.
He reiterated comments he made before the Shenzhou 17 launch, saying China, like the United States and its ISS partners, plans to start launching airships from other countries, including space tourists.
“We will accelerate research and promotion of the participation of foreign astronauts and space tourists on China’s space station,” he said in a translation of his remarks published in the Washington Post. “We definitely look forward to meeting astronauts with different identities on the Chinese space station.”
