China on Tuesday sent three astronauts to its now fully operational space station as part of crew rotation, according to state media, in the fifth manned mission to the Chinese space outpost since 2021.
The spacecraft, Shenzhou-16, or "Divine Vessel", and its three passengers lifted off atop a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi Desert in northwest China at 9:31 a.m. .
The station, comprising three modules, was completed at the end of last year after 11 crewed and uncrewed missions since April 2021, beginning with the launch of the first and biggest module - the station's main living quarters. Leading the Shenzhou-16 mission was Jing Haipeng, 56, a senior spacecraft pilot from China's first batch of astronaut trainees in the late 1990s. He had travelled to space three times before, including two trips as mission commander.
Former military university professor Zhu will serve as spaceflight engineer while Gui, a professor at Beihang University, will serve as the payload specialist on the mission, managing science experiments at the space station.Also by the end of 2023, China is due to a launch space telescope the size of a large bus.
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