The three astronauts from the Shenzhou-13 spacecraft – two men and a woman – arrived on Saturday at the new space station in China, to continue its construction for the next six months, in what is expected to be the country’s longest manned mission.
A Long March 2F rocket launched the Shenzhou-13 spacecraft towards Tiangong Station (Heavenly Palace) at 12:23 am from Jiuquan Launch Center in the Gobi Desert.
After the launch, the Chinese space agency responsible for manned flights, known by the acronym CMSA, said the operation had been a success and that the crew members were doing well, according to the official Xinhua agency. Hours later, the Shenzhou-13 spacecraft docked with the station.
At an altitude of between 350 and 400 kilometers, the three astronauts will remain in the Tianhe (“Celestial Harmony”) module, the only one already in orbit of the three that will form the space station.
Your mission will be to continue construction, check equipment and conduct some science experiments. They will also make two or three exits into space.
Thus, they will double the record duration of a Chinese manned mission, set in September by Shenzhou-12 astronauts, who spent three months in the Tianhe module.
“The reason for this extended stay is to gain experience in long-term missions,” explained Erik Seedhouse, a professor specializing in space operations at the Embry-Riddle University of Aeronautics, in the United States, to AFP.
“The main difficulty for astronauts will be maintaining muscle mass and reducing bone loss” in a zero-gravity environment, which weakens organisms, he added.
– ‘Very mature technologies’ –
The crew of ‘taikonauts’ – a term used to represent Chinese astronauts – is made up of two men: General Zhai Zhigang (55 years old), the first Chinese to make an extra-vehicular departure in 2008, and Ye Guangfu (41 years old), to who will be your first flight. And a woman: Wang Yaping (41 years old), who already went on a space trip in 2013.
Yaping is known for giving a live physics class to 60 million students on her first trip via a video link and will do the same again during the Shenzhou-13 mission. She will also become the first Chinese woman to take a spacewalk.
“China will not reinvent the wheel” with Shenzhou-13, said Chen Lan, an analyst at GoTaikonauts.com, who specializes in the Chinese space program.
“It won’t be a big challenge for China because its technologies are quite mature. However, any operation in space is, in essence, a challenge…”, he added.
This is the fifth of 11 missions (manned and unmanned) that will be needed to build the Chinese space station, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2022. The space platform will be similar in size to the former Soviet Mir (1986-2001) ) and will remain operational for at least 10 years.
– Robots and GPS –
The other two modules of the station, called Mengtian and Wentian (laboratories), will be launched next year and will be coupled with Tianhe. They will allow experiments in biotechnology, medicine and astronomy to be carried out.
Beijing decided to build a station after the Americans refused to accept the Chinese participation in the International Space Station (ISS), which is the result of cooperation between the United States, Russia, Canada, Europe and Japan.
In this sense, the CMSA reiterated this Thursday (14) that there will be no restriction on foreign astronauts to attend the Tiangong platform.
China has invested billions of dollars for decades to close its gap with other space powers.
In May, the Asian giant became the second country in the world, after the United States, to place a small robot on the surface of Mars.
China also made a historic landing in 2019, placing a probe on the dark side of the Moon’s surface. Last year, it brought samples from the natural satellite and completed the Beidou navigation system, which competes with the American GPS. Yesterday, it placed its first satellite to observe the Sun into orbit.
In the longer term, Beijing plans to send people to the moon and build a base on the natural satellite together with Russia.
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