China unveiled the crew on Wednesday, including a seasoned astronaut, which will fly this week to its Tiangong space station, a new milestone with its aim of sending a inhabited mission to the moon by 2030.
The Shenzhou-20 mission will take off on Thursday at 5:17 p.m. local time from the Jiuquan launch center in the northwest of the country, the space agency in charge of inhabited flights (CMSA) announced on Wednesday.
The team will be led by Chen Dong, a 46 -year -old army colonel, who goes for the third time in space after having become the first Chinese in 2022 to have been orbit for more than 200 days.
He will lead the astronauts Chen Zhongrui, a former 40-year-old Air Force pilot, and Wang Jie, 35, the first astronaut from Mongolia-interior (northern China), who go to space for the first time.
They will stay there for six months.
My goal is “to support the two new members so that they are progressing,” said Chen Dong on a press conference on Wednesday.
“We will help build a strong China in the spatial field and make our scientific power radiate,” added the astronaut.
Technological rivalry
President Xi Jinping gave China’s “space dream”, with the aim of sending a Chinese crew on the moon by 2030 and building a lunar base.
The party state has injected billions of euros into its space program in order to catch up with the United States and Russia, supplying its objective of becoming the largest world technological power.
Despite developments at an “impressive” rate, China “still accuses a definite delay in the United States”, notes Marc Julienne, director of the Asia Center of the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI).
But US President Donald Trump “could, however, provide Beijing a certain advantage by reducing budgets devoted to research and certain programs” American space, adds the expert.
The highlight of the Chinese space program, the Tiangong station, whose central module was launched in 2021, is occupied by teams of three astronauts renewed every six months.
The previous mission, Shenzhou-19, must end on April 29.
Foreign astronaut
The new team will notably pursue experiences in physics and life sciences, and will also have to install protection against space debris.
For the first time, it will embark planar, aquatic dishes known for their regeneration capacities.
“The results could help solve the problems related to injuries suffered in space,” said Lin Xiqiang.
China has been excluded from the international space station since 2011, when the United States has prohibited NASA from collaborating with Beijing.
Beijing has since been looking to reach other countries with its space program.
In February, China and Pakistan signed an agreement opening the way to the arrival of the first foreign astronaut aboard the Tiangong space station.
At the end of this process, “two Pakistani astronauts will be selected to come to China to follow a training,” CMSA confirmed on Wednesday.
