China is getting ready to launch a brand new three-person mission to finish work on its everlasting orbiting area station, the nation’s China Manned House Company mentioned Saturday.
The Shenzhou 14 crew will spend six months on the Tiangong station, throughout which they’ll oversee the addition of two laboratory modules to hitch the principle Tianhe dwelling area that was launched in April 2021.
Their spaceship is because of blast off from the Jiuquan Satellite tv for pc Launch Middle on the sting of the Gobi Desert on Sunday morning the company mentioned.
Commander Chen Dong and fellow astronauts Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe will assemble the three-module construction becoming a member of the present Tianhe with Wentian and Mengtian, because of arrive in July and October. One other cargo craft, the Tianzhou-3, stays docked with the station.
China’s area program launched its first astronaut into orbit in 2003, making China solely the third nation to take action by itself after the previous Soviet Union and the U.S.
It has landed robotic rovers on the moon and positioned one on Mars final yr. China has additionally returned lunar samples and officers have mentioned a doable crewed mission to the moon.
China’s area program is run by the ruling Communist Social gathering’s army wing, the Folks’s Liberation Military, prompting the U.S. to exclude it from the Worldwide House Station.
Chen, Liu and Cai will probably be joined on the finish of their mission for 3 to 5 days by the crew of the upcoming Shenzhou 15, marking the primary time the station may have had six folks aboard.
