The departure of 3 Chinese astronauts with Shenzhou 16 for their orbital station marks a busy time for China. But rather than talking about the future of the SSC, the people in charge of the manned program talked a lot about… the Moon. They are counting on a mission to set foot there before 2030.
In the meantime, much remains to be done.
Shenzhou 16, routine?
The take-off of Jing Haipeng, Zhu Yangzhu and Gui Haichao went relatively unnoticed in our media landscape. The CZ-2F rocket, which carried their Shenzhou 16 capsule to orbit, tore from the ground on Tuesday, May 30 at 3:31 a.m. (Paris time). She then approached the Chinese Space Station (the SSC) to dock there in the late morning, after a fully automated flight.
This is the fifth rotation in two years within the imposing station made up of three large modules (two laboratories and the central module Tianhe), and the first for which a member of the crew comes directly from the company. civil. Indeed, Gui Haichao is not military, a novelty for the Chinese program!
Until June 3, the crew of Shenzhou 16 and that of Shenzhou 15 will live together to ensure an efficient transition and get the 6 months of experiments, installations and spacewalks ahead of them off to a good start. The SSC is still young, and even if China shows an impressive technical success in its implementation, living in space in the long term is a lifelong learning (logistics as well as inventory management and maintenance, for example, are not simple tasks)!
Astronauts in orbit, scientists show the Moon
If 15 Chinese astronauts (or taikonauts) have already spent time in their national station, these missions will continue in the decade to come. But China does not hide it, it sees farther, and that farther is the Moon.
After a series of successful technological demonstrations with the Chang’E missions (which will continue next year with Chang’E 6), the country wants to send its astronauts there. Officials haven’t been making any mysteries for the past decade, but this time, that will is slowly taking shape. The objective is still not 100% in the government directives (which are established every 5 years), but the means to achieve it are in full development. This is particularly the case of the launcher. The current CZ-5 is not sufficient, so a giant CZ-10 launcher is expected, with an architecture with three boosters next to each other to propel a large capsule to the lunar orbit.
The Desired Future of Chinese Inhabited Exploration
The first take-off of CZ-10 is expected for 2027, knowing that China intends to implement in parallel the development of an “Apollo-style” lander which is already at an advanced design stage. The CZ-9 launcher, previously on all the artist’s views of this type of mission, is postponed until later, in a reusable version which is reminiscent of the American Starship.
In any case, the next manned lunar adventures will not be long in coming. Lin Xiqiang, head of the inhabited branch of Chinese flights, indicates that the first Chinese steps on our satellite are planned before 2030. Remember that this is also part of a long-term plan. China plans to set up a base (lLRS, for International Lunar Research Station) on the lunar surface, first with robotic means, then with the contribution of astronauts. An increasingly visible counterweight to the American Artemis program. Race ? Who said race?
Source : SpaceNews
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