Chinese astronauts sing karaoke and bake New Year’s cakes

Theo CCTVthe astronaut group including Zhang Lu, Wu Fei and Zhang Hongzhang celebrated the Lunar New Year together on the Tiangong space station yesterday. During the break, everyone recorded a music video and wrote words Phuc and enjoy a New Year’s Eve dinner from space.

In addition to food prepared by ground staff, astronauts also use specialized ovens to have extra food for small parties. This is also the first time Chinese astronauts have eaten cakes they baked themselves in space.

In the video posted on Weibo, the astronauts hold microphones and sing in a state of zero gravity, inside a cabin decorated with red, the lucky color of the Chinese New Year. The baking tray has an additional rack to help the cake stay stable when baking and using.

The Shenzhou 21 ship carries commander Zhang Lu (48 years old) who participated in the Shenzhou 15 mission in 2022 and two new astronauts, Wu Fei and Zhang Hongzhang, selected from China’s third batch of astronauts in 2020. At age 32, Wu is the youngest member of the Chinese astronaut team, working as an engineer at the Academy of Space Technology (CAST). Zhang (39 years old), a cargo expert on the ship, is a researcher at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

The Shenzhou 21 carries 6 experimental specimens and 4 black rats for reproductive experiments in low Earth orbit. According to the schedule, the autonomous cargo ship Tianzhou 10 also flew to Thien Cung station during the 6-month operation period of the Shenzhou 21 mission.

The Shenzhou spacecraft is slightly larger than the Russian Soyuz astronaut carrier. China is developing the Mong Chau human-carrying spacecraft that is not only partially reusable but also capable of taking astronauts to the Moon. To date, China has launched 16 manned missions. Shenzhou 21 is the 10th flight carrying astronauts to Tiangong station and the 7th since the station’s completion at the end of 2022.

China’s goal is to make the Thien Cung station, 20% the size of the International Space Station, permanently inhabited for at least a decade. The country also plans to expand the space station with new modules and open it up for commercial operations.