China’s first civilian astronaut in space

The Shenzhou-16 mission, which should bring valuable experience to China in the aerospace field, is launched. Beijing sent, Tuesday, May 30, to its Tiangong space station, three new astronauts, including, for the first time, a civilian.

The trio took off aboard a Long March-2F rocket at 9:31 a.m. local time (3:31 a.m. CET) from the Jiuquan launch center in the Gobi desert (northwest), according to journalists AFP on the spot.

The launch was a “full success” and the “astronauts are in good shape”, said Zou Lipeng, director of the launch center. Dozens of space program employees, many of whom live year-round on the massive space site, watched the liftoff and took selfies with the towering rocket in the background. Children were playing while waiting for the machine to leave when some were waving Chinese flags, perched on the shoulders of their parents.

Mission commander, veteran Jing Haipeng (56), on his fourth space flight, is accompanied by engineer Zhu Yangzhu (36) and Gui Haichao (36), professor and first Chinese civilian in space. A specialist in science and space engineering, the latter will be more particularly responsible for the experiments on board the station. He does not come from the armed forces, as was always the case until now.

Their stay on Tiangong (“Heavenly Palace”) is to last six months. There they will find their three colleagues from the previous mission, Shenzhou-15, who have already been there for six months and who will come back down to Earth in a few days.

A delay to catch up

“What is significant” in this mission, it is precisely “that there is nothing significant” because the Chinese manned program is now entering a longer period, underlines Jonathan McDowell, astronomer at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in the United States.

China now intends “to accumulate experience in manned spaceflight”an objective ” important “ and that “does not involve new spectacular steps all the time”, reports Mr. McDowell to Agence France-Presse. This is mainly for the astronauts to ensure crew rotations, a permanent occupation of Tiangong, maintenance and research work, as well as a slow expansion of the station’s capacities, explains Mr. McDowell. China has some catching up to do in this area, as it only sent its first human into space in 2003 – a very long time after the Soviets and the Americans who did so in 1961.

Tiangong, whose construction is now complete, has had its final T-shaped shape for a few months. Similar in size to the ex-Soviet Mir station, it is however much smaller than the International Space Station (ISS). Also known as CSS (for “Chinese Space Station” in English), it must remain in Earth orbit for at least ten years. Tiangong was supplied with drinking water, clothing, food and fuel in May ahead of Shenzhou-16.

Not authorized to participate in the ISS

China was partly pushed to build its own station due to the refusal of the United States to allow it to participate in the ISS. A US law prohibits almost any collaboration between US and Chinese space authorities.

The Asian giant however reiterated on Monday its desire to carry out international cooperation around Tiangong, in particular for the realization of experiments.

“I am extremely eager and eager to see foreign astronauts participate in missions in the Chinese space station”also said at a press conference Lin Xiqiang, the spokesman and deputy director of the China Human Space Flight Agency (CMSA in English).

In the longer term, he also reaffirmed the country’s desire “to achieve the first landing of a Chinese on the Moon before 2030” in particular in order to carry out “scientific observations”.

China has already invested billions of euros in its space program. In 2019, the country landed a device on the far side of the Moon, a world first. In 2020, he brought back samples from the Moon and finalized Beidou, his satellite navigation system. In 2021, Beijing landed a small robot on Mars. The Asian giant now plans to launch two manned space missions each year, CMSA said on Monday.

The next will be Shenzhou-17, which is expected to launch in October.