China will send a new crew to its Tiangong space station tomorrow evening, the Chinese space agency announced, as part of its ambitious space program that plans to send astronauts to the moon by 2030.
The Shenzhou-18 space mission, consisting of three astronauts, will lift off at 20.59:XNUMX local time on Thursday from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, the Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said.
The three-member team is led by Ye Guangfu, a military pilot and astronaut who was already part of the crew of the Shenzhou-13 spacecraft in 2021. He will be accompanied by two other astronauts who will be in space for the first time.
The crew will remain in orbit for six months, where they will conduct scientific tests, install space debris protection equipment on the space station, and more, said CMSA Assistant Director Lin Siaqiang at a press conference.
He said China is also working to offer foreign astronauts and space tourists access to its space station at a later stage.
Tiangong, which means Heavenly Palace, is a landmark project of China's space program that landed rovers on the Moon and Mars and enabled China to become the third country to send humans into orbit.
Construction of Tjangong was completed in 2022, and it is scheduled to remain in low Earth orbit, between 400 and 450 kilometers above the planet for at least ten years.
Crews of three astronauts take turns on the space station.
The new team will replace the team from the Shenzhou 17 mission that was sent to the space station in October.
China has been excluded from the International Space Station since 2011, when the US banned its space agency NASA from cooperating with Beijing. China then developed its space station project.
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