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Posted on Oct 16, 2021/03:13 CDT
Updated: 10/16/2021 / 6:12 AM CDT
In this photo released by the Xinhua News Agency, a screenshot taken at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center in Beijing, China on Saturday, October 16, 2021 shows three Chinese astronauts from the left, Ye Guangfu, Zhai Zhigang and Wang Yaping after entering space, station core module Tianhe wave. China’s Shenzhou-13 spacecraft, carrying three Chinese astronauts, docked at its space station on Saturday and began a record-breaking six-month stay as the country moves towards the completion of the new outpost in orbit. Chinese characters, left, read “Platform camera B”. (Tian Dingyu / Xinhua via AP)
BEIJING (AP) – Chinese astronauts began their six-month mission to China’s first permanent space station on Saturday after successfully docking aboard their spacecraft.
The astronauts, two men and one woman, hovered around the module before talking over a live streaming video.
The new crew includes Wang Yaping, 41, who is the first Chinese woman to set foot on the Tiangong space station and who is expected to become China’s first female spacewalker.
“We will work together, carefully maneuver and try to successfully complete all tasks in this round of universe exploration,” Wang said in the video.
The spaceship’s Shenzhou-13 spacecraft was launched by a Long March-2F rocket at 12:23 p.m. on Saturday and docked with the space station’s Tianhe core module at 6:56 a.m.
The three astronauts entered the station’s core module around 10 a.m., the China Manned Space Agency said.
They are the second crew to move into the Chinese Tiangong space station, which was launched last April. The first crew stayed three months.
The new crew includes two aerospace veterans – Zhai Zhigang, 55, and Wang. The third member, Ye Guangfu, 41, is making his first voyage into space.
The launch of the mission was accompanied by a military band and supporters singing “Ode to the Motherland,” which underscores national pride in the space program, which has advanced rapidly in recent years.
The crew will undertake three space walks to install equipment for upgrading the station, assess living conditions in the Tianhe module, and conduct experiments in space medicine and other areas.
China’s military space program plans to send multiple crews to the station over the next two years to make it fully operational.
When completed with two more sections – Mengtian and Wentian – the station will weigh around 66 tons, much less than the International Space Station, which launched its first module in 1998 and weighs around 450 tons.
Two more Chinese modules are to be launched before the end of next year during the stay of the Shenzhou-14 crew, who has yet to be named.
China’s foreign ministry on Friday renewed its commitment to collaborate with other nations in the peaceful uses of space.
Spokesman Zhao Lijian said it was a “common cause of humanity” to send people into space. China will continue to “expand the depth and breadth of international cooperation and exchanges” in human spaceflight and make positive contributions to the exploration of the mysteries of the universe, “he said.
China was excluded from the International Space Station mainly because of US objections to the secret nature of the Chinese program and close military ties.
US law requires Congress approval for contact between the American and Chinese space programs, but China is working with space experts from other countries, including France, Sweden, Russia, and Italy. Chinese officials said they look forward to hosting astronauts from other countries aboard the space station once it is fully operational.
China has launched seven manned missions since 2003 with a total of 14 astronauts on board – two have flown twice – since 2003, when it was only the third country after the former Soviet Union and the United States to take one person into space.
China has also expanded its lunar and Mars exploration work, including landing a rover on the under-explored back of the moon and returning lunar rocks to Earth for the first time since the 1970s.
This year, China also landed its Tianwen-1 spacecraft on Mars, with its companion rover Zhurong looking for evidence of life on the red planet.
Other Chinese space programs require Earth to be collected from an asteroid and additional lunar samples to be brought along. China has also expressed a desire to land humans on the moon and possibly establish a scientific base there, although no timetable has been proposed for such projects. A very secret space plane is also reportedly under development.
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