A Long March rocket with a Shenzhou-19 spacecraft atop takes off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, northwestern China in the early hours of Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024
A Long March rocket with a Shenzhou-19 spacecraft atop takes off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, northwestern China in the early hours of Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024Photo | AP

China launches new crew to its space station as it seeks to expand exploration

The team of two men and one woman will replace the astronauts who have lived on the Tiangong space station for the last six months
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JIUQUAN: China declared a “complete success” after launching a new three-person crew to its orbiting space station early Wednesday. The country aims to expand its exploration of outer space with missions to the moon and beyond.

The Shenzhou-19 spaceship, carrying the trio, blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 4:27 a.m. local time, atop a Long March-2F rocket, the backbone of China’s crewed space missions. “The crew condition is good, and the launch has been successful,” the state broadcaster China Central Television announced.

China built its space station after being excluded from the International Space Station, primarily due to U.S. concerns over the People’s Liberation Army, the military arm of the Chinese Communist Party, having overall control over the space program. China's moon program is part of a growing rivalry with the U.S. and other nations, including Japan and India.

The team of two men and one woman will replace the astronauts who have lived on the Tiangong space station for the last six months. They are expected to stay until April or May of next year.

The new mission commander, Cai Xuzhe, previously went to space on the Shenzhou-14 mission in 2022, while the other two Song Lingdong and Wang Haoze are first-time space travelers born in the 1990s. Song was an air force pilot, and Wang is an engineer with the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. Wang will serve as the crew’s payload specialist and is the third Chinese woman to participate in a crewed mission.

In addition to placing a space station in orbit, the Chinese space agency has landed an explorer on Mars. It aims to put a person on the moon before 2030, which would make China the second nation, after the United States, to do so. The agency also plans to build a research station on the moon and has already transferred rock and soil samples from the far side of the moon, a global first.

The U.S. still leads in space exploration and plans to land astronauts on the moon for the first time in more than 50 years, although NASA pushed the target date back to 2026 earlier this year.

The new crew will perform spacewalks and install new equipment to protect the station from space debris, some of which was created by China. According to NASA, large pieces of debris have resulted from “satellite explosions and collisions.” China’s firing of a rocket to destroy a redundant weather satellite in 2007 and the accidental collision of American and Russian communications satellites in 2009 greatly increased the amount of large debris in orbit, NASA noted.

China’s space authorities say they have measures in place in case their astronauts need to return to Earth earlier.

China launched its first crewed mission in 2003, becoming only the third nation to do so after the former Soviet Union and the United States. The space program is a source of enormous national pride and a hallmark of China’s technological advances over the past two decades.

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The New Indian Express
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