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The Shenzhou 14 crew will spend six months on the Tiangong station, throughout which they’ll oversee the addition of two laboratory modules to affix the principle Tianhe dwelling house that was launched in April 2021.
Their spaceship blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite tv for pc Launch Heart on the sting of the Gobi Desert at 10:44 a.m. (0244 GMT) atop the crewed house flight program’s workhorse Lengthy March 2F rocket. Fifteen minutes later, it reached low Earth
and opened its photo voltaic panels, drawing applause from floor controllers in Jiuquan and Beijing.
The launch was broadcast stay on state tv, indicating a rising stage of confidence within the capabilities of the house program, which has been promoted as an indication of China’s technological progress and world affect.
Commander Chen Dong and fellow astronauts Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe will assemble the three-module construction becoming a member of the prevailing Tianhe with Wentian and Mengtian, attributable to arrive in July and October. One other cargo craft, the Tianzhou-3, stays docked with the station.
The arrival of the brand new modules will “present extra stability, extra highly effective features, extra full tools,” stated Chen, 43, who was a member of the Shenzhou 11 mission in 2016, at a press convention Saturday.
Liu, 43, can be an area veteran and was China’s first feminine astronaut to achieve house aboard the Shenzhou 9 mission in 2012. Cai, 46, is making his first house journey.
China’s house program launched its first astronaut into orbit in 2003, making it solely the third nation to take action by itself after the previous Soviet Union and the U.S.
It has landed robotic rovers on the moon and positioned one on Mars final 12 months. China has additionally returned lunar samples and officers have mentioned a attainable crewed mission to the moon.
China’s house program is run by the ruling Communist Occasion’s army wing, the Folks’s Liberation Military, prompting the U.S. to exclude it from the Worldwide House Station.
Chen, Liu and Cai can be joined on the finish of their mission for 3 to 5 days by the crew of the upcoming Shenzhou 15, marking the primary time the station could have had six folks aboard.
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