China's Shenzhou-16 lifts off for space station; Beijing plans to land astronauts on Moon by 2030 - The Straits Times

The Tiangong is the crown jewel of China’s space programme, which has also seen it land robotic rovers on Mars and the Moon and made it the third country to put humans in orbit.

The mission is the first to the Tiangong space station since it entered its “application and development” stage, Beijing said.

Once in orbit, the Shenzhou-16 will dock at the space station’s Tianhe core module, before the crew members meet three colleagues from the previous manned Shenzhou-15 flight, who have been at the space station for six months and will return to Earth in the coming days.

The mission will “carry out large-scale, in-orbit experiments... in the study of novel quantum phenomena, high-precision space time-frequency systems, the verification of general relativity, and the origin of life,” China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) spokesman Lin Xiqiang told reporters on Monday.

The space station was resupplied with drinking water, clothing, food and propellant in May in preparation for Shenzhou-16‘s arrival.

One expert told AFP that Tuesday’s flight represented “a regular crew rotation flight as one crew hands over to another”, but even that was significant.

“Accumulating depth of experience in human space flight operations is important and doesn’t involve new spectacular milestones all the time,” said Dr Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer and astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics.

‘Heavenly palace’

Plans for China’s space dream have been put into overdrive under President Xi Jinping.

China is planning to build a lunar base, and CMSA’s Mr Lin reaffirmed on Monday Beijing’s plan to land a manned mission on the Moon by 2030.

“The overall goal is to achieve China’s first manned landing on the Moon by 2030 and carry out lunar scientific exploration and related technological experiments,” he said.

The final module of the T-shaped Tiangong – which means “heavenly palace” – successfully docked with the core structure in 2022.

Adblock test (Why?)

https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiaGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnN0cmFpdHN0aW1lcy5jb20vYXNpYS9lYXN0LWFzaWEvY2hpbmFzLXNoZW56aG91LTE2LW1pc3Npb24tdGFrZXMtb2ZmLWJvdW5kLWZvci1zcGFjZS1zdGF0aW9u0gEA?oc=5

2023-05-30 02:10:00Z
2044099919