Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center – China was due to launch its Shenzhou-21 spacecraft on Friday, carrying a new three-person crew to operate the country’s own Tiangong space station on a research mission. The replacement crew includes China’s youngest taikonaut, as China’s space program calls its astronauts, and will also include live mammals for the first time since the program began in Beijing.
Shenzhou-21 and its crew were scheduled to blast off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China shortly before midnight or around 11 a.m. on Friday.
Target astronauts Zhang Lu, Wu Fei and Zhang Hongzhang will be on board to rotate so that the trio, currently aboard the Chinese space station from the previous Shenzhou-20 mission that launched on April 24, can return home after six months in space. The exact date of their return has not yet been announced.
Taikonauts Zhang Hongzhang, Wu Fei and Zhang Lu wave during a launch ceremony before taking part in the Shenzhou-21 space flight mission to China’s Tiangong Space Station at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center near Jiuquan, Gansu Province, China, in 2025. October 31 REUTERS Scheme / Credit: Maxim Scheme.
According to information provided by the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), the Shenzhou-21 crew plans to carry out a total of 27 scientific and applied research projects during its mission, focusing on several areas, including space life sciences, biotechnology, space medicine, space materials science, microgravity fluid physics and combustion, and new space technologies.
Along with the spacecraft, Shenzhou-21 will carry four mice – two female and two male – the first live mammals China has ever sent into space. Two previous missions had delivered live fish to Tiangong Station.
Taikonauts will study the effects of microgravity and confined space conditions on behavioral patterns in mice.
The Shenzhou-21 crew, led by Lu, is scheduled to live on the space station for about six months, as will the crew they are replacing.
Flags fly as mock-ups of space rockets are seen near the Long March-2F rocket launch pad, ahead of the Shenzhou-21 space flight mission to China’s Tiangong Space Station, at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center near Jiuquan, Gansu Province, China, in 2025. October 30. RE/Credit: Maximum Scheme.
This will not be the first visit to the station by Lu, who previously served on the Shenzhou-15 mission.
Two other crew members are making their first space flight, and flight engineer Wu, born in 1993, will be the youngest taikonaut ever sent by his nation.
“I feel incomparably happy,” he told reporters on Thursday. “The opportunity to integrate my personal dreams into the glorious journey of China’s space program is the greatest asset this era has given me.”
Crowds of people gathered outside the Jiuquan launch site on Friday before the countdown, and the man, who identified himself to CBS News only as Mr. Zhao, said he was “very happy” to be there with his 7-year-old son, “hoping to plant the seed of a space dream in his heart.”
China’s Growing ‘Space Dream’
China has unilaterally stepped up its space program after being kicked out of the International Space Station project — largely due to U.S. government concerns about the Chinese military taking full control of the program — as it pursues its “space dream” under President Xi Jinping.
From 2021 it houses the Tiangong Station and is now planning to welcome the first non-Chinese crew member to the facility.
China will arrange for a Pakistani national to carry out a short-term space mission in the future, CMSA said, following the signing of a cooperation agreement between the two countries in February.
Artist’s impression of the Tiangong Space Station with two Shenzhou crew ships and automated cargo transport attached to the docking ports. / Credit: China Aviation Science and Technology Corporation
The process of selecting a Pakistani citizen for training has already begun, as well as planning training programs and preparing logistical support for Pakistanis.
After the selection, the two Pakistani nationals will travel to China to train with Chinese recruits for future missions, CMSA said.
CMSA spokesman Zhang Jingbo said at a press conference this week ahead of the Shenzhou-21 launch that China would welcome international partners to participate in missions on its space station.
Work on China’s space station coincides with, and often complements, the country’s efforts to be the first nation to land a man on the lunar surface in more than 40 years. Chinese officials have set a public goal of landing rovers on the lunar surface by 2030 and eventually building a lunar base.
China has already landed unmanned probes on the moon, including the first to land and to collect samples from the far side of the celestial body just last year.
“Overall, research and construction have been going smoothly, and China aims to put Chinese astronauts on the moon by 2030,” Zhang said this week ahead of the upcoming launch in Shenzhou, indicating that CMSA is continuing to pursue its lunar goals.
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