HELSINKI — Three new astronauts have arrived at China’s Tiangong space station following launch from the Gobi Desert late Wednesday.
A Long March 2F rocket tipped with the Shenzhou-17 spacecraft lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert at 11:14 p.m. Eastern, Oct. 25 (0314 UTC, Oct. 26). The spacecraft separated from the upper stage 10 minutes later. Zou Lipeng, commander of the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, announced the launch a complete success.
Rendezvous and docking at Tiangong’s forward docking port was completed 6.5 hours later, at 5:46 a.m. Oct. 26, China’s human spaceflight agency confirmed.
The Shenzhou-17 astronauts will soon be greeted aboard Tiangong by the Shenzhou-16 crew, who will hand over control of the station and depart for Earth Oct. 31.
The Shenzhou-17 crew is composed of commander Tang Hongbo, a veteran of Shenzhou-12—the first mission to visit Tiangong’s Tianhe core module in 2021—and former air force pilots Tang Shengjie and Jiang Xinlin. The trio will spend around six months aboard Tiangong, or Heavenly Palace in English.
Tang was recruited as part of a second batch of Chinese astronauts in 2010. The latter pair were selected as members of China’s third batch of astronauts in September 2020. A fourth selection round is currently underway, and could include, for the first time, astronauts from Hong Kong or Macau.
Shenzhou-17 is China’s sixth crewed mission to Tiangong, and the country’s 12th overall. The astronauts will perform maintenance tasks, conduct science experiments and outreach events.
They will also perform a first extravehicular activity to carry out experimental maintenance operations outside Tiangong, according to Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO), speaking at a press conference Oct. 25.
Lin stated that preliminary inspections found that the space station’s large solar arrays were repeatedly…
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