- China’s 11th manned space flight is the first to include a civilian.
- The 36-year-old scientist Gui Haichao is to replace the colleagues on board the Chinese space station alongside two astronauts.
- With this mission, China underlines its claim in space. The country’s ambitious space plans continue to run at full speed – and with success.
They are called astronauts in the USA, cosmonauts in Russia – in China they are taikonauts. On Tuesday, three men made their way to the Chinese space station from the Gobi Desert. It is China’s eleventh manned space flight.
Legend:
Left to right: Taikonauts Jing Haipeng, Zhu Yangzhu and Gui Haichao attend a press conference ahead of their flight into space.
Reuters/China Daily
China bid farewell to the three taikonauts with a solemn ceremony. These are to replace their colleagues on board the space station after six months in space. In addition to two soldiers, a civilian is also present for the first time: 36-year-old Gui Haichao, a scientist from Beijing Aerospace University. He should take care of experiments. The crew will stay in space for five months.
Show of power in the stars
Not only does this mission serve science, it is also intended to consolidate China’s position of power in space and lead the space race to the next round.
This is one of many achievements in a program that has had, and will continue to have, tremendous success.
Former NASA research chief Thomas Zurbuchen says many people underestimate how successful many of China’s investments have been. “This is one of many successes in a program that has had incredible success and will continue to do so in the future.”
China wants to catch up with the major space nations USA and Russia as quickly as possible. A goal that certainly arouses fears in the West. For example, China already has a modern space station just twenty years after the People’s Republic sent its first taikonauts into space.
Legend:
The rocket was launched near Jiuquan (Gansu province) in the Gobi desert on Tuesday.
Reuters/China Daily
Zurbuchen names two reasons for this success. On the one hand, the military foundation of programs helps China to make rapid progress. On the other hand, the country has incredibly smart people: “Many of them were trained in the West, but there are also great universities in China itself,” says Zurbuchen. When he asked Elon Musk who his biggest competitor was, he said that there was only one organization as good as SpaceX – namely China.
The space plans under President Xi Jinping are in full swing. According to the Chinese space agency, the country is planning to build a lunar base with the aim of achieving China’s first manned landing on the moon by 2030.