BEIJING (AP) — China is making ready to launch a brand new three-person mission to full work on its everlasting orbiting area station, the nation’s China Manned Space Agency stated Saturday.
The Shenzhou 14 crew will spend six months on the Tiangong station, throughout which they’ll oversee the addition of two laboratory modules to be a part of the primary Tianhe residing area that was launched in April 2021.
Their spaceship is due to blast off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on the sting of the Gobi Desert on Sunday morning at round 10:44 a.m. native time (0244 GMT), the company stated.
Commander Chen Dong and fellow astronauts Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe will assemble the three-module construction becoming a member of the present Tianhe with Wentian and Mengtian, due to arrive in July and October. Another cargo craft, the Tianzhou-3, stays docked with the station.
China’s area program launched its first astronaut into orbit in 2003, making China solely the third nation to achieve this by itself after the previous Soviet Union and the U.S.
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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 area program is run by the ruling Communist Party’s army wing, the People’s Liberation Army, prompting the U.S. to exclude it from the International Space Station.
Chen, Liu and Cai will probably 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 may have had six folks aboard.
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