La Jornada: China sends an astronaut to space for a year; prepares way to the Moon

Beijing. China launched its manned ship Shenzhou-23 and managed to successfully dock it with a space station in the early hours of today, within the framework of Beijing’s ambitions to send humans to the Moon by 2030, state media reported.

During this mission, a Chinese astronaut will spend an entire year in orbit aboard the Tiangong (Heavenly Palace, in Chinese) space station, a crucial milestone for Beijing’s moon landing program.

Thanks to massive investments, the Asian giant has developed its space program and is now competing with the United States and its Artemis program to set foot on the Earth’s satellite again.

The carrier rocket Long March 2F It took off engulfed in a cloud of flames and smoke at 11:88 p.m. (3:08 p.m. GMT) from the Jiuquan launch center, located in the Gobi Desert, in northwest China, according to images from state broadcaster CCTV.

The ship successfully docked with the space station after a flight of about 3 and a half hours, reported the state agency Xinhua, which cited the China Manned Space Flight Agency (CMSA).

“The astronauts are in good condition and the launch has been a total success,” he added.

This experience will allow us to study the effects of a long stay in microgravity, essential for future lunar missions or even to Mars.

The mission also marks the first space flight carried out by an astronaut originally from Hong Kong: Li Jiaying, 43, who previously worked for the police of that semi-autonomous Chinese territory.

The other crew members are Commander Zhu Yangzhu, a 39-year-old space engineer, and Zhang Zhiyuan, a former air force pilot, also 39, who will travel to space for the first time.

In addition to the orbital stay, the crew will carry out numerous experiments related to materials science, fluid physics and medicine.

Muscle atrophy, radiation, fatigue…

The selection of the astronaut in charge of spending a year in orbit will occur later, depending on the evolution of the Shenzhou-23 mission, a CMSA official indicated on Saturday.

The “main challenges” will be “the effects on humans” of the conditions of this environment that can generate “loss of bone density, muscle atrophy, exposure to radiation, sleep disturbances, behavioral and psychological fatigue,” Richard de Grijs, astrophysicist and professor at the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at Macquarie University, in Australia, explains to AFP.

It also underlines the importance of the reliability of water and air recycling systems, as well as the ability to manage potential medical emergencies far from Earth.

“China has become very competent in these areas, but duration is important. One year in orbit places the material and human beings in a different operational regime than the shorter Shenzhou missions,” emphasizes De Grijs.

Until now, crews stayed at the Tiangong station for six months before being replaced.

dream ship

China is still in the phase of developing and testing the equipment necessary to send astronauts to the Moon this decade.

The orbital test flight of the ship is planned for this year Mengzhou (dream ship), which will replace the Shenzhou for manned missions to the Moon.

Beijing hopes to build the first segment of an inhabited scientific base on the Earth’s satellite, called the International Lunar Research Station, by 2035.

The Asian giant has injected billions of dollars in the last 30 years to put its space program at the level of those of the United States, Russia or Europe.

Its advances have been particularly visible in the last decade.

In 2019, China landed a space probe on the far side of the lunar star, an unprecedented achievement on a global scale, and in 2021 it landed a small robot on Mars.

China has been formally excluded from the International Space Station since 2011, the year in which the United States prohibited its space agency, NASA, from collaborating with Beijing.

This pushed the Asian giant to develop its own space station project.