It is a day that will mark. China sent three new astronauts to its Tiangong space station on Tuesday, May 30, including a civilian for the first time, with the ambition of strengthening its knowledge of manned flight against the Americans and the Russians. A valuable experience for the Asian giant, which reaffirmed on Monday that it wanted to send a Chinese to the moon by 2030, the main objective of a space program which has been progressing steadily for several decades.
The trio of the Shenzhou-16 mission took off aboard a Long March 2F rocket at 9:31 a.m. local time (3:31 a.m. in Paris) from the Jiuquan launch center in the Gobi desert (Northwest), according to journalists from Agence France-Presse on the spot. The launch was a "complete success" and the "astronauts are in good shape", said Zou Lipeng, director of the launch center. Mission commander, veteran Jing Haipeng (56), on his fourth spaceflight, is joined by engineer Zhu Yangzhu (36) and Gui Haichao (36), a professor and the first Chinese civilian in space.
A specialist in science and space engineering, the latter will be more particularly responsible for experiments in the station. He does not come from the armed forces as was always the case until now. Their stay in Tiangong ("Heavenly Palace") is to last six months. There they will find their three colleagues from the previous mission, Shenzhou-15, who have already been there for six months and who will come back down to Earth in a few days.
"What is significant" in this mission is precisely "that there is nothing significant" because the Chinese manned program is now entering a longer time frame, underlines Jonathan McDowell, astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, USA.
China now intends to "accumulate experience in manned spaceflight", an "important" objective and which "does not involve new spectacular steps all the time", he told Agence France-Presse. This is primarily for astronauts to ensure crew rotations, permanent occupation of Tiangong, maintenance and research work, as well as a slow expansion of the station's capabilities, explains Jonathan McDowell.
China has some catching up to do in this regard, having only sent its first human into space in 2003 – a very long time after the Soviets and the Americans in 1961.
Tiangong, whose construction is now complete, has had its final T-shaped shape for a few months. Similar in size to the former Russian-Soviet Mir station, it is however much smaller than the International Space Station (ISS).
Also known as CSS (for "Chinese Space Station"), it must remain in Earth orbit for at least 10 years. Tiangong was supplied with drinking water, clothing, food and fuel in May ahead of Shenzhou-16.
China was partly pushed to build its own station due to the refusal of the United States to allow it to participate in the ISS. An American law prohibits almost any collaboration between American and Chinese space authorities.
The Asian giant however reiterated on Monday its desire to carry out international cooperation around Tiangong, in particular for the realization of experiments. "I am extremely looking forward and eager to see foreign astronauts take part in missions in China's space station," CMSA spokesperson and deputy director Lin Xiqiang also told a press conference.
In the longer term, he also reaffirmed the country's desire "to achieve before 2030 the first landing of a Chinese on the Moon" in order in particular to carry out "scientific observations". China has already invested billions of euros in its space program.
The country landed a device on the far side of the Moon in 2019, a world first. In 2020, he brought back samples from the Moon and finalized Beidou, his satellite navigation system. In 2021, China landed a small robot on Mars. The Asian giant now plans to launch two manned space missions each year, CMSA said on Monday. The next will be Shenzhou-17, which is expected to launch in October.
