China is to send its first civilian astronaut into space as part of a crewed mission to the Tiangong space station today, as it pursues its ambitious plans for a crewed lunar landing by 2030.
The world’s second-largest economy has invested billions of US dollars in its military-run space program, trying to catch up with the US and Russia after years of belatedly matching their milestones.
All Chinese astronauts previously sent into space had been part of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
Photo: AP
Gui Haichao (桂海潮) is a professor at Beijing’s Beihang University, and would manage scientific experiments on the station during the mission, China Manned Space Agency deputy director Lin Xiqiang (林西強) told reporters yesterday.
His mission would “carry out large-scale, in-orbit experiments ... in the study of novel quantum phenomena, high-precision space time-frequency systems, the verification of general relativity and the origin of life,” Lin said.
“I’ve always had this dream,” Gui told a news conference yesterday.
His university said that he hailed from an “ordinary family” in the southwest province of Yunnan.
He had “first felt the attraction of aerospace” listening to the news of China’s first man in space, Yang Liwei (楊利偉), on campus radio in 2003, the university wrote on social media.
Gui’s addition is “particularly significant,” independent analyst Chen Lan said, adding that previous missions only carried astronauts trained as pilots responsible for more technical tasks and were not specialist scientists.
“It means that, from this mission on, China will open the door to space for ordinary people,” he said.
Gui is set to take off onboard the Shenzhou-16 spacecraft from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China today at 9:31am, the space agency said.
Space Commander Jing Haipeng (景海鵬) would lead the mission — on his fourth expedition into space, state media reported.
The third crew member would be engineer Zhu Yangzhu (主養豬).
Jing said he had not gone home for nearly four years due to fears that travel could disrupt his training.
“As astronauts going into space ... our main responsibility and mission is striving for glory for our country,” he said.
The three are to stay in Earth’s orbit for about five months.
Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), plans for China’s “space dream” have been put into overdrive.
China is planning to build a base on the moon, and Lin yesterday said that Beijing plans to land a crewed mission there by 2030.
“The overall goal is to achieve China’s first manned landing on the moon by 2030 and carry out lunar scientific exploration and related technological experiments,” he said.
The final module of the T-shaped Tiangong — whose name means “heavenly palace” — successfully docked with the core structure last year.
The station carries several pieces of cutting-edge scientific equipment, Xinhua news agency reported, including “the world’s first space-based cold atomic clock system.”
The Tiangong is expected to remain in low Earth orbit at 400km to 450km above the planet for at least 10 years.
It is constantly crewed by rotating teams of three astronauts.
While China does not plan to use Tiangong for global cooperation on the scale of the International Space Station, Beijing has said it is open to foreign collaboration.
China “is looking forward to and welcomes the participation of foreign astronauts in the country’s space station flight missions,” Lin said.
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS