China successfully launched the rocket Shenzhou-18; took three magic cow to Tiangong station
Yichang. The rocket Shenzhou-18, with a crew of three magic cow, as astronauts are known in China, from the government of that nation, successfully took off yesterday towards the Tiangong low orbit station, in order to carry out a six-month mission, which is part of the extensive aerospace program of the Asian giant, which plans to reach the Moon in 2030.
The shuttle Grand March-2F, one of the most recent government devices, took off at 8:59 p.m. local time from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, on the edge of the Gobi Desert, in the northeast of the country, confirmed the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA, for its acronym in English).
On board the ship are mission commander Ye Guangfu, taikonauta 43-year-old veteran, who was a member of the mission Shenzhou-13, launched in 2021, and his companions Li Cong, 34, and Li Guangsu, 36, both former army fighter pilots and now participating in their first space mission.
The team was sent off with applause in a ceremony in which they were tasked with carrying out this mission. The trio will take about six and a half hours to reach Tiangong after the ship reaches orbit and performs an automated rendezvous to dock with the space station, located about 400 kilometers from Earth, according to the revealed mission program. this week.
The crew will be received by the three astronauts of the Shenzhou-17, who have been at the base since last October conducting research and experiments, and whose return to Earth is scheduled for within a week.
The new crew will carry out scientific experiments and spacewalks, as well as maintain the space station, Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of CMSA, revealed before the launch.
One of the jobs is to use zebrafish to build a self-circulating aquatic ecosystem
stable, in addition to cultivating vertebrates in orbit, a novelty in China
advancement.
Lin also updated information on China’s manned lunar program. He specified that the development of key components for the manned moon landing, including the spacecraft, was completed. Gran March 10 y Mengzhou, the moon landing module Lanyue and the space suits that will be used on the lunar surface.
This project involves two rocket launches Gran March 10 to send three astronauts and the lunar landing module separately.
China built its own space station after being excluded from the International Space Station in 2011, largely due to US concerns about the involvement of the Asian country’s military in the program.
Washington works to return its astronauts to the Moon after the program Apollo. Your mission Artemis III which was previously scheduled to take off in 2025, has been postponed to September 2026, NASA reported earlier this year.
The delay was due to a number of technical reasons, including SpaceX’s prospects for building the superheavy rocket. Starship, whose task is to transfer American astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface of the satellite.