China's latest human spaceflight mission is headed for orbit on Thursday morning (April 24), and you can watch the action live.
A Long March 2F rocket topped with the Shenzhou 20 crew spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on April 24 at 5:17 a.m. EDT (0917 GMT; 5:17 p.m. Beijing time). Space.com will webcast the launch here, courtesy of CCTV.
Shenzhou 20 will carry commander Chen Dong, making his third trip to space, and rookie astronauts Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie, both of whom were selected for China's third intake of astronauts in 2020.
The Shenzhou 20 spacecraft is scheduled to rendezvous and dock at the Tiangong space station around 6.5 hours after launch. There, they will be greeted by the incumbent Shenzhou 19 crew, led by commander Cai Xuzhe. Cai and his two colleagues will hand over control of Tiangong to the incoming Shenzhou 20 astronauts, who will begin their six-month-long mission aboard the space station.
The Shenzhou 19 astronauts will then depart for Earth in their own spacecraft. The return is scheduled for April 29, according to airspace closure notices.
Chen Dong has strong spaceflight experience, having flown on the two-person Shenzhou 11 mission to the Tiangong 2 space lab—a smaller precursor to Tiangong—in 206. He then led the Shenzhou 14 mission to Tiangong in 2022, which oversaw the arrival of the two experiment modules to complete the three-module space station.
"On one hand, I feel immense pride and honor to once again embark on a space journey for my country. It is a great privilege and joy," Chen said during an April 23 press conference. "On the other hand, I have greater expectations. Every spaceflight is unique, and I look forward to gaining more experience and making new breakthroughs during this mission."
Chen Zhongrui was formerly a pilot in the People's Liberation Army Air Force (also referred to as the Chinese Air Force) while Wang was an aerospace engineer with China's main space contractor, CASC.
To become a qualified astronaut, Chen said he underwent intense training, covering over 200 subjects across eight categories, while also facing challenges such as centrifuge training and spin-chair exercises. He was inspired by a visit to his University by Yang Liwei, China's first astronaut in space. "At the time, I never dared to imagine that years later, I would become an astronaut myself," he said.
Wang stated that he will, as a spaceflight engineer, be assisting the other two astronauts and will mainly be responsible for materials management as part of the mission's science objectives.
"We are ready, and we are looking forward to going to space," Wang said. "This time, the responsibility has been placed on our shoulders. I think it is a sense of duty. We hope to do our job well, manage the space station effectively, and successfully complete our experimental projects during the six months in space."
China will launch the Tianzhou 9 cargo resupply mission to Tiangong during the Shenzhou 20 astronauts' time aboard the space station, delivering fresh supplies, propellant for maintaining Tiangong's orbit, and new experiments and materials.
Shenzhou 20 is the ninth crewed mission headed for Tiangong — which orbits between 217 and 280 miles (340 to 450 kilometers) above Earth — and will be the sixth visit since the three-module orbital outpost was fully assembled in October 2022. Shenzhou 20 will be the fifth mission of what China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) terms the application and development stage of China's space station.
China plans to keep Tiangong, which is about 20% as massive as the International Space Station (ISS), permanently inhabited for at least a decade. The country also wants to expand the space station with new modules and open the outpost to commercial activities.
CMSA and Pakistan are currently working together in preparation for the first foreign astronaut to fly to Tiangong.
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