JIUQUAN SATELLITE LAUNCH CENTER, China — China’s space agency is making final preparations to send the Shenzhou-18 crew to low Earth orbit on Thursday as part of its ambitious space program that aims to land humans on the moon by 2030.
At a press conference on Wednesday, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) introduced the three astronauts; Commander Ye Guangfu, 43, a veteran astronaut who was part of the Shenzhou-13 mission in 2021; and astronauts Li Cong, 34, and Li Guangsu, 36, who will go to space for the first time.
The three-member crew spacecraft is scheduled to lift off at 8:59 pm (12:59 GMT) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the edge of the Gobi Desert in the country’s northwest. They will take over from the Shenzhou-17 team, which has manned the Chinese Tiangong space station since last October.
The crew will spend about six months on the space station. They will conduct scientific tests, install space debris protection equipment on the space station, conduct payload experiments, and popularize science education, among other things, according to Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of the CMSA.
Lin also said China was working to eventually offer access to its space station to foreign astronauts and space tourists.
“We will accelerate research and promotion of the participation of foreign astronauts and space tourists in flights with China’s space station,” he said. “We definitely hope to see astronauts of different identities on China’s space station.”
China built its own space station after being excluded from the International Space Station, largely due to US concerns about the involvement of the People’s Liberation Army (the military arm of the Chinese Communist Party) in the program.
This year, the Tiangong space station is scheduled for two cargo spacecraft missions and two human spaceflight missions.
China carried out its first manned space mission in 2003, becoming the third country, after the former Soviet Union and the United States, to send a person into space using its own resources.
The US space program is believed to still have a significant advantage over China’s due to its spending, supply chains and capabilities. However, China has intruded into some areas, bringing back samples from the lunar surface for the first time in decades and landing a rover on the less-explored far side of the Moon.
The United States, the only country to have previously sent astronauts to the Moon, aims to return a crew to the lunar surface by the end of 2025 as part of a renewed commitment to manned missions, with the help of private sector players such as SpaceX and Blue . Origin.
Four countries, the United States, Russia, China and India, have landed spacecraft on the Moon.
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Mistreanu reported from Kaohsiung, Taiwan.