China has successfully docked its Shenzhou-13 space mission with its new space station. It is set to be Beijing’s longest crewed mission to date and the latest landmark in its drive to become a major space power.
State media said that three Chinese taikonauts blasted off around 9 pm Pakistan time (16:00 GMT Friday) from the Jiuquan launch centre in northwestern China’s Gobi desert. The state-run news agency said that the team is expected to spend six months at the Tiangong space station.
The China Manned Space Agency declared the launch a success and said that the crew members “were in good shape”.
The Shenzhou-13 vessel carrying the three then docked hours later with the radial port of the space station. The mission – twice as long as its 90-day predecessor – will set up equipment and test technology for future construction on the Tiangong station.
55-years-old Zhai Zhigang is the Mission commander who is also a former fighter pilot who performed the country’s first spacewalk in 2008. Zhai said that the team would undertake “more complex” spacewalks than during previous missions.
The team also includes 41-years-old military pilot Wang Yaping who has become the first woman to visit the space station after becoming China’s second woman in space in 2013. The other team member is a 41-years-old People’s Liberation Army pilot Ye Guangfu.
Astronauts on the Tiangong space station will have separate living spaces, exercise equipment, and a communication centre for emails and video calls with ground control.
A previous record-breaking space crew – making the first mission to Tiangong – returned to Earth in September after three months on the space station.
New horizons
China’s heavily promoted space program has already seen the superpower land a rover on Mars and send probe missions to the moon. Meanwhile, Tiangong is expected to operate for at least 10 years. Its core module entered orbit earlier this year, with the station expected to be operational by 2022.
The completed station will be similar to the Soviet Mir station that orbited Earth from the 1980s until 2001.
Experts say that the long mission will expand China’s technological boundary and verify the space station system’s capacity for a longer duration of human occupation.
Saturday’s blast-off followed the launch of the country’s first solar exploration satellite into space that is equipped with a telescope to observe changes in the Sun.
Meanwhile, the Chinese space agency is also planning a total of 11 missions to Tiangong through to the end of next year. They include at least two more crewed launches that will deliver two lab modules to expand the 70-tonne station.
The space race
China’s space ambitions have been fuelled in part by a US ban on its taikonauts on the International Space Station, which is a collaboration of the US, Russia, Canada, Europe, and Japan. The ISS is due for retirement after 2024; although, NASA has said it could potentially remain functional beyond 2028.
Chinese space authorities have maintained that they remain open to foreign collaboration on the space station; however, the scope of that cooperation remains unclear.
The country has come a long way since launching its first satellite in 1970. It put the first Chinese taikonaut in space in 2003 and landed the Chang’e-4 robot on the far side of the Moon in 2019 — a historic first. Earlier in May, China became the second nation to land and operate a rover on Mars.
