The rocket that would send three crew members to start living on China’s new orbiting space station was on Wednesday moved onto the launch pad ahead of its planned blastoff next week.
The astronauts plan to spend three months on the space station doing spacewalks, construction, maintenance and science experiments.
The main section of the Tianhe station was launched into orbit on April 29, and a cargo spacecraft sent up last month carried fuel, food and equipment to the station in preparation for the crewed mission.
Photo: Reuters
The Long March-2F Y12 rocket carrying the Shenzhou 12 spaceship was transferred to the launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Wednesday, the China Manned Space Engineering Office said in a statement.
The space agency plans a total of 11 launches through the end of next year to deliver two laboratory modules to expand the 63.5-tonne station, along with supplies and crew members. Next week’s launch would be the third of those, and the first of the four crewed missions planned.
China said in March that the astronauts training for the upcoming crewed missions were a mix of space travel veterans and newcomers, and included some women.
The first station crew would be all male, although women would be part of future crews, said Yang Liwei (楊利偉), who orbited Earth in China’s first crewed mission in 2003 and is now an official at the space agency.
The Tianhe builds on experience China gained from operating two experimental space stations earlier in its increasingly ambitious space program.
It landed a probe, the Tianwen-1, on Mars last month that carried a rover, the Zhurong. China also has brought back lunar samples, the first by any country’s space program since the 1970s, and landed a probe and rover on the moon’s less explored far side.
It has sent 11 astronauts into space, all of them pilots from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
Beijing does not participate in the International Space Station, largely due to US objections. Washington is wary of the Chinese program’s secrecy and its military connections.
Once completed, the Tianhe would allow for stays of up to six months, similar to the much larger International Space Station (ISS).
The Chinese station reportedly is intended to be used for 15 years and might outlast the ISS, which is nearing the end of its functional lifespan.
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