3 astronauts to take off today for first mission to space station
ASTRONAUTS for China’s first crewed mission to its new space station will have a choice of 120 different types of food and “space treadmills” for exercise when they lift off today, China’s space agency said.
The mission will be China’s longest crewed space mission to date and the first in nearly five years, as China pushes forward with its ambitious space program.
The astronauts will spend three months on the Tiangong station, which has separate living modules for each of them as well as a shared bathroom, dining area, and a communication center to send e-mails and allow video calls with ground control.
The planned stay would break the country’s record of 30 days, set by the 2016 mission — China’s last crewed flight — of Chen Dong and Jing Haipeng to a prototype station.
The trio will be able to work off their range of dinner options — which officials assured reporters were all nutritious and tasty — on the special treadmills or exercise bikes.
The Long March-2F rocket that will get them there will lift off at 9:22am local time from the Jiuquan launch center in northwest China’s Gobi desert, the China Manned Space Agency said yesterday.
“Over the past decades, we have written several glorious chapters in China’s space history and this mission embodies the expectations of the people and the Party itself,” the mission’s commander, Nie Haisheng, told reporters.
His team has undergone over 6,000 hours of training, including hundreds of underwater somersaults in full space gear, to get accustomed to their suits for spacewalks.
Nie was among the first batch of Chinese astronauts selected for training in 1998, and has already been on two space missions.
He is a decorated air force pilot, and the others in his team are also members of the Chinese military.
Asked what he would pack for the long trip, Nie — speaking to reporters from behind a glass wall to keep the astronauts quarantined — said his bag was full of “things for entertainment and for hosting mini gettogethers.”
Crew member Tang Hongbo said in a separate interview with state broadcaster CCTV that he had taken videos of everyday life with his son and wife to watch on the space station.
Their Shenzhou-12 spacecraft will dock with the main section of the Tiangong space station, named Tianhe, which was placed in orbit on April 29.
Another 11 missions are planned over the next year and a half to complete the construction of Tiangong in orbit, including the attachment of solar panels and two laboratory modules.
The astronauts will be kept busy testing and maintaining the systems onboard, conducting spacewalks and undertaking scientific experiments.
Footage from CCTV showed them preparing by working in a pool with spacesuits on to simulate making repairs to the station during a spacewalk.
“Over the past decades, we have been struggling every minute to realize our space dreams,” said Liu Boming, the third member of the Shenzhou12 crew.
“(I) have dedicated myself to the cause.”
Technologies tested
The mission aims to conduct in-orbit verification of major technologies in China’s space station construction and operation.
The technologies to be tested include those concerning the astronauts’ long-term stay and health care, recycling and life support system, supply of space materials, extravehicular activities and operations, as well as inorbit maintenance, said Ji Qiming, assistant to the director of the CMSA.
Assisted by the mechanical arm, astronauts will carry out extravehicular activities for a relatively long time for operations including equipment installation and maintenance, Ji said.
The space-Earth transport system for manned space missions will be tested further as part of the mission, he added.
The mission will carry out multi-field space applications and experiments, and for the first time examine the astronaut research and rescue capabilities at the Dongfeng landing site in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Ji said.
Chinese astronauts have had a relatively low international profile.
A US law banning NASA from any connection with China means its astronauts have not been to the more than two-decade-old International Space Station, visited by more than 240 men and women of various nationalities.
The ISS, a collaboration between the US, Russia, Canada, Europe and Japan, is due for retirement after 2024, although NASA has said it could potentially remain functional beyond 2028.
Tiangong is expected to have a lifespan of at least 10 years.
China said it plans to carry out more extensive and in-depth international cooperation on its space station, making it a space lab for the benefit of all mankind.
“We welcome cooperation in this regard in general,” Ji of the CMSA said. “It is believed that, in the near future, after the completion of the Chinese space station, we will see Chinese and foreign astronauts fly and work together.”