China has launched the Shenzhou-12 spacecraft with three astronauts aboard to its new Tianhe space station on June 17. The Shenzhou was launched atop a Long March-2F Y12 rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi desert. It is Nie Haisheng's third spaceflight following those on the Shenzhou-6 in October 2005 and the Shenzhou-10 in June 2013. Nie is a Major General, Commander of the PLA Astronaut Division and fighter jet pilot in the PLA Air Force. Major General Liu Boming previously took part in the mission of Shenzhou-7 in September 2008. It is the first trip in space for the third astronaut, Senior Colonel Tang Hongbo. The average age of the crew is 53 years. They will spend 90 days aboard the space station, which now consists of the Tianhe core module, the Tianzhou-2 cargo ship and the Shenzhou-12.
China selected its first batch of 14 astronauts in the mid-1990s. Since 2003, it has sent six astronauts into space, including Yang Liwei, the country's first astronaut, and Zhai Zhigang, who carried out China's first space walk in September 2008.
The Shenzhou performed a fast and automatic docking procedure with the Tianhe core module 6.5 hours after launch. It took the Shenzhou-11 over 40 hours to travel to and dock with the Tiangong in 2016. The newly adopted docking capability was first used in the Tianzhou-2 cargo mission in late May, which helped the craft to realize a docking with the space station's core module in eight hours. China's homemade BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) has also played a crucial part in the accurate positioning of the spacecraft. Making the safety of astronauts a priority, the Shenzhou-12 mission's research team has also developed a new emergency response system to ensure that the astronauts can be rescued both in space and at the launch site.
The astronauts spent their first days in the space station unpacking cargo, preparing their living quarters and installing wifi. Appliances in the space station can be controlled by phone apps on a specially designed mobile phone for use in space. As there are seven astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS), there are for the first time 10 astronauts in space at the same time. Once completed, China's space station will be able to operate in orbit for at least 10 years, a period that could be extended to 15 years under proper maintenance, making it the only operational space station when the ISS retires in 2024.
The Tianzhou 3 cargo ship will be launched in September to dock with Tianhe, and in October, another crew of three will fly with the Shenzhou-13 to the space station to stay there for six months. In 2022, two large space labs will be launched to connect with the core module. Moreover, two manned missions and two robotic cargo flights will be made to continue construction of the Tiangong station, which is scheduled to be completed in time for formal operation to begin around the end of 2022. The Tiangong space station will consist of three main components – a core module attached to two space labs – with a combined weight of nearly 70 metric tons.
Chinese space agency authorities welcomed international cooperation on the space station. General Director of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin expressed his willingness to work with Chinese counterparts, saying that the possibility of Russian cosmonauts flying to the Chinese space station are being studied. Roscosmos threatened to leave the International Space Station in 2025 unless the U.S. lifts sanctions preventing Russia from importing certain microchips required for its space programs. Bo Linhou, Vice Chief Designer of the Tianhe core module, told the Global Times in April that foreign cooperation will mainly involve payload experiments. “Scientists from China and other foreign partners could jointly develop payloads that will be brought to the station by cargo spacecraft, and after experiments are completed in orbit, the data could be shared with the international community,” he said. Nine scientific projects have been submitted by 17 nations to be carried out in the Chinese space station.
On October 15, 2003, China carried out its first manned spaceflight, sending Yang Liwei on a 21-hour journey in the Shenzhou-5 spacecraft. Before Shenzhou-12, China had conducted six manned spaceflights, which totaled 68 days and orbited earth 1,089 times, while 11 Chinese astronauts had traveled more than 46 million km in space and conducted more than 100 experiments.
This overview is based on reporting by the China Daily, Shanghai Daily and Global Times.
