China will launch three astronauts towards its Tiangong house station in the present day (Oct. 31), and you’ll watch the motion dwell.
You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of CGTN, or directly via the network.
Shenzhou 21 will ship three astronauts — Zhang Lu, Zhang Hongzhang and Wu Fei — to China’s Tiangong house station in low Earth orbit.
Zhang Lu, 48, will command the mission. He is an off-Earth veteran, having additionally flown to Tiangong on the Shenzhou 15 mission in November 2022. Zhang Hongzhang, 39, and Wu, 32, will probably be making their spaceflight debuts.
Wu will make historical past in the present day, changing into the youngest Chinese language astronaut ever to achieve house.
“Because the youngest member of China’s Astronaut Corps, I really feel extraordinarily lucky to embark on my spaceflight mission,” Wu mentioned throughout a press convention at Jiuquan on Thursday (Oct. 30). “I owe my success to the period we dwell in, which is seeing leapfrog growth in China’s aerospace trade.”
The three astronauts will spend about six months aboard Tiangong — the same old stint for guests to China’s orbiting outpost.
They will conduct a wide range of scientific experiments throughout that stretch, together with analysis with mice. That will probably be a primary for China, which has by no means despatched rodents to Tiangong earlier than. The trio will even carry out spacewalks and conduct public outreach actions, amongst different duties.
Shenzhou 21 would be the tenth crewed flight to Tiangong, a three-module station that China completed constructing in October 2022. The mission will take over for Shenzhou 20, whose three astronauts are scheduled to come back again to Earth on Nov. 3.
