Beijing: China Space Station Wednesday (October 30, 2024) welcomed the arrival of the new batch of residents - the youngest-ever crew comprising of Shenzhou-19 mission commander Cai Xuzhe and new taikonaut Song Lingdong and female taikonaut Wang Haoze.
Shenzhou-19, China's manned spacecraft, successfully docked with the space station combination at 11 am, 6.5 hours after the lift-off from northwest China's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, according to the Global Times.
Cai returned to the China Space Station on the Shenzhou-19 manned mission just 22 months after his last flight on Shenzhou-14, setting a record for the shortest interval between missions in the history of Chinese taikonauts.
Song and Wang were both born in 1990 and are members of the country's third batch taikonauts. The Shenzhou-19 mission is their debut in space.
Wang is also China's first female spaceflight engineer, the China Manned Space Agency or CMSA said Tuesday.
"With its young lineup, the involvement of a female taikonaut and scheduled experiments during the mission, including the unprecedented exposure experiment of the bricks made from simulated lunar soil - a potential building material for future habitats on the moon, the mission carries great importance for the country's development of future manned lunar projects", Wang Ya'nan, Chief Editor of Beijing based, Aerospace Knowledge magazine, said.
This mission marks the 4th crewed flight in the application and development phase of the space station and the 33rd flight of China's manned space program.
"Its primary goals are to complete an in-orbit crew rotation with the Shenzhou-18 crew, reside on the space station for about six months, conduct space science and application experiments, perform extravehicular activities (EVAs), manage cargo entry and exit, install and recover space debris protection devices and other external equipment on the space station", Lin Xiqiang, a CMSA spokesperson, revealed at a press conference on Tuesday.
The mission will also involve public outreach, space education, and payload experiments to further enhance space station operational efficiency and maximize its overall utility, Lin said.
A historic moment as #Shenzhou19 and #Shenzhou18 crews get together for a family photo in China’s #Tiangong Space Station! pic.twitter.com/h4nL1NWFSi
— Hua Chunying 华春莹 (@SpokespersonCHN) October 30, 2024
During their stay in orbit, the Shenzhou-19 crew will receive the Tianzhou-8 cargo spacecraft and the Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft, with their return to the Dongfeng landing site scheduled in late April or early May, said the spokesperson.
"After the in-orbit crew rotation with the Shenzhou-19 crew, the Shenzhou 18 crew is set to return to the Dongfeng landing site on November 4, 2024", Lin said.
China is pressing ahead with its goal to land taikonauts on the moon by 2030, accelerating with the development and construction efforts to turn this ambition into reality, the CMSA announced at a press conference on Tuesday.
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