Country’s first civilian arrives on space station
Shenzhou 16 carries team of three for a five-month mission on Tiangong
China’s Shenzhou 16 space crew were greeted with hugs on arrival at the Tiangong space station yesterday afternoon at the start of a five-month mission for the three astronauts, including the country’s first civilian team member.
The spacecraft docked with the station’s Tianhe core module 400km above Earth at 4.29pm, less than seven hours after it launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre on the edge of the Gobi Desert in northwestern Gansu province.
The Shenzhen 15 crew, who have been at the space station for six months, opened the hatch at 6.22pm and welcomed the new group in. The China Manned Space Agency declared the launch a success about 19 minutes after the craft blasted off at 9.31am.
Before the launch, Shenzhou 16 commander Jing Haipeng said the mission marked “a new stage of application and development” in China’s space programme. It is Jing’s fourth journey into space, the most of any of the country’s astronauts.
Beihang University professor Gui Haichao, the first Chinese astronaut to be drawn from outside the ranks of the People’s Liberation Army, is a payload specialist. Also making his first journey into space is flight engineer Zhu Yangzhu.
Wang Huiquan, a specialist advising the space programme on new technology, said Gui’s participation was a landmark event for the programme.
“Gui … is a scientist, not a soldier or a pilot. Entering space as the first payload specialist means that science and application of the space station is in a new era,” the professor at Zhejiang University told Tianmu News, a Chineselanguage news portal under the state-owned Zhejiang Daily Press Group.
“His PhD was in aircraft design and his research directions are spacecraft dynamics, navigation and control, space science and experiments. The results produced in the experiments in this mission will play a key role in the improvement of China’s spacecraft in the future.”
Wang said Gui was a professional with a wealth of experience in science and aerospace engineering.
The Shenzhou 16 crew will take over from the Shenzhou 15 astronauts, who are due to return to Earth next month.
During their six months in space, the Shenzhou 15 team have been conducting experiments and assembling equipment, research efforts that will be continued by their successors. The new crew will carry out in-orbit tests and experiments to study novel quantum phenomena, high-precision space time-frequency systems, the verification of general relativity and the origin of life, according to Xinhua.
“The crew will conduct more than 50 in-orbit tests and experiments on space science and application payloads, the highest so far by any Chinese team who has been to space,” Huang Weifen, who is in charge of training China’s astronauts, told Xinhua. She also said 11 types of food had been added to the crew’s menu, giving them more than 150 food and drink options, in an effort to improve their quality of life in space.
Huang said the new crew members had a device for growing fruit and vegetables in orbit, supplementing their supplies. They will be on board to witness the redocking of the uncrewed cargo spacecraft Tianzhou 5 and the Shenzhou 17 mission.
The Tianzhou 6 cargo ship made a resupply mission to the space station earlier this month, the first since the Tiangong’s completion in November.
Speaking before his weekly meeting with his advisers in the Executive Council, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said he wanted to “enthusiastically congratulate” the mission on the success of the launch.
“The Shenzhou 16 manned space mission is the second mission for the country’s manned space programme this year. It is also the space station’s first crewed mission in its application and development stage,” Lee said.
“The country’s crewed space exploration efforts are having continued progress and success, this is making me feel very proud and honoured.”
The city leader also offered his support to around a dozen people from Hong Kong and Macau who have passed the first stage of selections for a payload specialist for the national space programme. They will travel to Beijing next month to begin the second round of selections.
“Hong Kong’s candidates came from government departments, the Hospital Authority, universities and other organisations and companies,” Lee said. “I want to cheer for the Hong Kong candidates. I expect there will be someone among them who will be able to successfully realise their dreams of travelling to space.”
Space exploration, pushing the frontiers of mankind, has exerted a firm grip on the public imagination. Thanks to its role in it, the military has basked in the reflected glory of national achievements. Ultimately, it is scientific research from space probes and platforms that will most enrich the knowledge of our universe and unlock the advances to be made. In that respect civilians will share the limelight, and play an increasingly important role in China’s space programme.
That is what sets the launch of the Shenzhou 16 spacecraft apart. One of the three astronauts, who docked with the Tiangong space station less than seven hours later, was drawn from outside the ranks of the People’s Liberation Army and is Gui Haichao, a professor at Beijing’s Beihang University, the first Chinese civilian to go into orbit.
Gui is a payload specialist, a term with which the public will become increasingly familiar. It refers to a scientist or engineer who manages complex or classified mission equipment and conducts scientific activities.
The astronauts are on a five-month mission to relieve the inaugural Tiangong crew, and mark “a new stage of application and development” in the country’s space programme, according to Shenzhou 16 mission commander Jing Haipeng, who is on his fourth journey into space, a record for China’s astronauts.
Those already on board the Tiangong, who are soon to come home, have been conducting experiments and assembling equipment during their six months in space.
The scale and depth of China’s space ambitions, and boundless vision of the possibilities, are reflected in a brief description of the new mission’s activities by state news agency Xinhua – to “carry out in-orbit tests and experiments to study novel quantum phenomena, high-precision space time-frequency systems, the verification of general relativity and the origin of life”.
Hong Kong could soon be more than a cheerleader of a space programme that projects modern China’s rise on the global stage. Last year, the 25th anniversary of China’s resumption of sovereignty and some 19 years after China’s first manned space flight, it was revealed that the next intake of astronauts would include two payload specialists to be selected from across the country, including Hong Kong and Macau.
Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu has offered best wishes to around a dozen people from Hong Kong and Macau who have passed the first stage of selection for a payload specialist. They now travel to Beijing for the second round. “Hong Kong’s candidates came from government departments, the Hospital Authority, universities and other organisations and companies,” Lee said.